Russia’s Anna Sidorova tops the rankings, undefeated, in the women’s competition after six sessions of play at the World Junior Curling Championships 2011 in Perth, Scotland.

Sidorova and Scotland’s Eve Muirhead are scheduled to meet each other on Thursday, the final day of round-robin play and this game could be the decider as to which of them eventually tops the rankings. 

On Tuesday morning, Russia cruised to a 10-1 win over Japan’s Sayaka Yoshimura and followed that up with a 9-3 win over Norway’s Kristine Davanger. Afterwards, Sidorova said, “when we came into the competition we thought we could make the top four and we should be there. But we still have to play three games.”

In the same sessions, Scotland’s Eve Muirhead beat the Czech Republic’s Anna Kubeskova by 6-4 but then went down by 6-7 to Sweden’s Jonna McManus in a game that went down to a last stone measure before the Swedes got confirmation of their single steal for victory.

After their engrossing game, McManus said, “that was a very important win for us on the rankings.  We played so badly in the last game and the game before, so we really needed to pick it up” while Muirhead commented, “it was one of those games.  We played it the way we wanted to and had hammer coming down the last.  We’d be happy to take them any other day.  We’re sitting second now – it’s only one loss and no-one likes a run that goes unbeaten during the Championships”.

Behind Russia and Scotland, Sweden sits in third place on four wins and two losses. Norway, Japan and USA share the crucial fourth spot.

On the day that their Association announced the appointment of their first-ever High Performance Director – Scotland’s Derek Brown – USA had a mixed day.  Skip Rebecca Hamilton led her team to an 8-2 win over Sweden but then went down to an extra end 6-7 loss to Japan’s Sayaka Yoshimura.

After that game Yoshimura said, “when we went into the extra end I knew I was going to win it.  We have been struggling so far and it’s a tough event and we still have some tough games to play”.

 

After losing by 4-10 to Norway in the morning, Switzerland’s Manuela Siegrist beat Canada’s Trish Paulsen by 10-3. This Canadian defeat followed their easy 15-4 win over France. The Czech Republic’s Anna Kubeskova also beat France by 11-3. The Swiss, Canada and the Czechs share the same won two, lost four record, while, despite their best efforts, France have yet to win a game.

Photo: Manuela Siegrist. Photo courtesy of Tom Brydone.

Women’s Standings after Round 6:

Russia 6-0

Scotland 5-1

Sweden 4-2

Norway 3-3

Japan 3-3

USA 3-3

Czech Republic 2-4

Switzerland 2-4

Canada 2-4

France 0-6.

 RESULTS

Round 6: Russia 9, Norway 3 ; Scotland 6, Sweden 7; Czech Republic ,11 France 3; Japan 7, USA 6 (extra end); Canada 3, Switzerland 10.

Round 5: Scotland 6, Czech Republic 4; Norway 10, Switzerland 4; Japan 1, Russia 10; France 4, Canada 15; Sweden 2, USA 8.