Leslie Ingram-Brown reports from Erzurum:
RUSSIA DEFEATED BY GBR WOMEN: Semifinal v Japan next
Would Cinderella come to the ball and would GBR Women top off the Russian Federation and finish in first place in the rankings table at the end of the round robin?
The first could not be answered in the opening five ends where three ends were blanked and only single shots scored in the first and fourth ends. The first and GBR lay two shots which the Russian Federation's skip Anna Sidorova reduced to 1 for GBR against the head. In the fourth Anna (Sloan) hit to lie two shots followed by Anna (Sidorova) who drew for the 1. Simple, but the stakes for both teams were high.
All change in the sixth end where GBR raised the stakes quite dramatically and their game domination showed as suddenly whatever the Russian Federation produced GBR seemed to be one step further ahead and finished with Anna Sloan having a relatively simple draw for 4. Sixth and again GBR lay two shots in a strong position. Sidorova went to raise her open shot to the GBR counter but got the wrong angle, raised to her own stone at the back of the house and rolled inwards to count shot.
Eighth and Sidorova goes for a draw with her last stone, sits open and leaves Anna a clear view for a hit for 2 and at 7-2 the Russian Federation conceded. Yes, Cinderella did come to the ball and the GBR Women on eight wins lead the rankings and will have the hammer in the semifinal.
After the game National Coach Nancy Murdoch was delighted with the performance which gave the team percentage at 87%. Nancy said, "That's top notch in my book."
Later Anna said, "We were in control the whole way. We knew it would be tight and in the sixth end we made every shot count."
The semifinal lineup will be Great Britain against Japan and the Russian Federation against Korea. These games will be on Friday.
TEAMS
Russia: Anna Sidorova, Liudmilla Privivkova, Margarita Fomina, Ekaterina Galkina
Great Britain: Anna Sloan, Lauren Gray, Vicki Adams, Claire Hamilton
SCORELINE
rus * 00010 010XX = 2
gbr 10000 402XX = 7
SCORES Great Britain 7 Russia 2, Canada 9 Turkey 3, Germany 6 Korea 5, Czech Republic 13 Poland 4, Japan 7 China 5.
STANDINGS END OF ROUND ROBIN
8/1 - Great Britain; 7/2 Russia; 6/3 Korea Japan; 5/4 - China; 4/5 - Canada, Czech Republic; 3/6 Germany; 2/7 Poland; 0/9 Turkey.
The official website is here.
