 Scotland's Ross Whyte won 6-1 over Edmonton's Ryan Jacques at the Astec Safety Challenge in Lloydminster. Whyte looks to build on their burgeoning reputation in Canada and improve their current world ranking of number eight. "It's a little different starting the year out here in Canada instead of Scotland," their skip Whyte admitted. "It is always nice to play the event in Perth in front of home crowds with friends and family around, but it will be good this year to go out and experience the Lloydminster event with some great teams in it, and hopefully, we can start off the new year in a really positive way." In their opening tilt against Jacques, teams played conservatively through the early ends. With the game tied at one at the game's halfway point, Whyte scored two in the fifth end, then stole two in the sixth end and one more in the seventh end to finish out a 6-1 win. The team had contrasting experiences over the Christmas and New Year break, with vice-skip Robin Brydone and second Duncan McFadzean battling it out with one another in the mixed doubles arena, while Whyte and lead Euan Kyle engaged in some technical work. "Duncan was out in Sweden for the mixed doubles and we had some great success in the Scottish Mixed Doubles just before that break with Robin winning it with his partner Sophie (Sinclair) and Duncan finishing second (with Sophie Jackson) which is great to build on and shows that they are getting better and better as players." "Euan and I had more time to work hard on technique and make ourselves better players at home which was good, so we had a good training block which led us in nicely into the festive period." They consequently feel ready to take on the world's best over the next two weeks. "It will certainly be a very tough field this week and we will be looking forward to it because we always enjoy playing the best teams in the world." "That's why we come to these events, to challenge ourselves, so it will be a good starting point to the year to play in Lloydminster and then follow that with the Slam and hopefully get two really good results." The opening win advances Whyte to the A-event semifinals, where they will face Calgary's Brad Jacobs at 7:30 pm Mountain Time (2:30 am in Scotland) and will be available for viewing through CurlingZone's YouTube channel. |
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