Former Canadian women’s champion Heather Nedohin, 2012 provincial finalist Renee Sonneberg and talented up-and-comer Laura Crocker all ended in tiebreaker games in the women’s division at the Players’ Championship in Toronto.
All three Alberta teams were involved in a nine-way tie at 2-2 after round-robin play concluded Friday.
Saskatoon’s Stefanie Lawton (4-0) was the only team to go undefeated in her pool, while Sweden’s Margaretha Sigfridsson and reigning Canadian women’s champ Rachel Homan of Ottawa both finished at 3-1. Eve Muirhead of Perth, Scotland, also had a 2-2 record, but was awarded the fourth berth into Saturday morning’s quarter-finals at 9:30 a.m. MDT.
The other four quarter-finalists will be decided by the four tiebreaker games. Two were played Friday night: Sonnenberg was up against Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni while Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones took on Switzerland’s Michele Jaeggi. The other two tiebreakers will be played at 6:30 a.m. MDT: Nedohin versus Moscow’s Anna Sidorova and Crocker against Winnipeg’s Chelsea Carey.
While both Sonnenberg and Nedohin had to win their last round-robin games to make the tiebreakers, Crocker’s young team of Sarah Wilkes, Rebecca Pattison and Jen Gates, three of whom moved to Alberta from Ontario last summer to train and work at the Saville Centre, had to win twice Friday against two of Canada’s top women’s teams. First, they beat Sherri Middaugh of Coldwater, Ont., 9-3, then they scored three in the eighth end to upset Jones 7-5.
In the men’s division, the final three round-robin games were being played Friday night, with Kevin Martin taking on Winnipeg Jeff Stoughton and Kevin Koe playing reigning Canadian champion Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Both Martin and Koe were 2-1 and could advance directly into the quarter-finals with victories.
