Canada’s Homan beats Sweden’s Hasselborg at women’s world curling championship

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UIJEONGBU-SI — Rachel Homan made a draw for a single in the 10th end to give Canada a 9-7 win over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg on Sunday at the LGT world women’s curling championship.

Homan, from Ottawa, improved her round-robin record to 2-1 with the victory at Uijeongbu Arena.

Sweden opened with a steal of two before Canada pulled even with back-to-back singles. In the fifth, Hasselborg tried a double-takeout but her shot went over the top, allowing Homan to draw for four points.

“The ice conditions are tricky and the paths fooled us in the first end,” Homan said. “We made one but then misread the next one, so it (was) definitely treacherous in the first couple ends and you have to be careful.

“We’ve got to try and make a few more early, but we learned from them, made a pile of shots in the middle and got some big points and big steals.”

Sweden rebounded with three points in the eighth end and stole a single in the ninth.

The Canadian side, which includes Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes, will play Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont in its lone gameMonday.

Homan split her first two games on the opening day of the 13-team competition, dumping Lithuania’s Virginija Paulauskaite before falling 8-7 to Scotland’s Rebecca Morrison on a three-ender in the 10th end.

“I’m not going to forget about yesterday,” Homan said. “I’m going to take it and learn from it and not make those mistakes again. We talked about it and tried to tweak a few things today.

“It was a slow start, but with the rain today, there’s more frost and the lines were a bit worse for longer.”

In the late draw Sunday, South Korea’s Eunji Gim topped Scotland 5-4 in an extra end to improve to 3-0. Sweden rebounded with a 7-5 win over Denmark.

Italy’s Stefania Constantini held off American Tabitha Peterson 8-7 and Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni defeated Turkey’s Dilsat Yildiz 8-4.

Switzerland shared top spot at 3-0 ahead of Sweden (3-1). Canada, Denmark and China’s Rui Wang were tied in fourth place at 2-1.

Play continues through March 23. Homan is the defending champion after winning gold last year in Sydney, N.S.