CurlingZone: Alina Kovaleva wins Prestige Hotels and Resorts Curling Classic

Alina Kovaleva (Saint-Petersburg, Russia) wins the Prestige Hotels & Resorts Curling Classic, defeating Kelsey Rocque (Edmonton, AB) 7-3 at the Vernon Curling Club in Vernon, Canada. Kovaleva with Anastasia Bryzgalova at third, Uliana Vasilyeva and Ejkaterina Kuzmina on the front end take home the $8,800CDN first place cheque along with 42.146 world ranking points, while Rocque receives $6,900CDN and 30.907 world ranking points for their second place finish.

Starting with hammer, Rocque scored 1 in the first end, Kovaleva responded in the second end scoring 2, then forced Rocque to a single in the third end. Kovaleva came back in the fourth end scoring 2 to extend lead to 4-2. After Rocque scored a single in the fifth end, Kovaleva scored 3 in the sixth end and held for the 7-3 win.

In the semifinals, Kovaleva defeated Diane Gushulak (New Westminster, BC) 9-1 and Rocque defeated Un-Chi Gim (Gyeonggi-do, Korea) 5-3. Gushulak and Gim earned $4,300CDN and 23.883 ranking points for their semifinal finishes. In the quarterfinals, Kovaleva defeated Satsuki Fujisawa (Kitami, Japan) 4-3, Rocque defeated Karla Thompson (Kamloops, BC) 8-2, while Gim defeated Corryn Brown (Kamloops, BC) 5-4 and Gushulak defeated Kristen Streifel (Regina, Saskatchewan) 8-6. Brown, Streifel won $3,250CDN, while Fujisawa and Thompson earned $3,150CDN along with 16.858 ranking points for their quarterfinal finishes.

Kovaleva went 3-2 in the 20 team round robin pools qualifying round. In their opening game, Kovaleva lost 7-2 to Brown, then responded with a 10-3 win over Sijia Liu (Harbin, China). Kovaleva lost their next game to Rocque 6-4, then responded with a 7-4 win over Lindsay Hudyma (Vancouver, BC) and won against Sarah Daniels (Delta, BC) 8-2 in their final qualifying round match to reach the playoff round.

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