CurlingZone: Sweden down Great Britain to remain undefeated

Sweden's Anna Hasselborg (Photo: Anil Mungal) are the team to beat so far in Cortina with five straight wins to begin the competition.

By: Cameron Sallaj

It has been smooth sailing so far for Anna Hasselborg and her Swedish quartet of Sara McManus, Agnes Knochenhauer and Sofia Scharback in Cortina. Currently, the 2018 Olympic champions are the only undefeated team on the women's side, taking another win over Great Britain in their game Sunday afternoon.

The game did not get off to the best start for the Swedes, however, as they conceded two to Team GB in the opening end. They bounced back immediately, however, hitting for three in the second to go ahead 3-2.

After forcing Sophie Jackson and the British team to one in the third, Hasselborg continued her sharp shooting in the fourth with another takeout for three points, giving Sweden complete control of the match. They then stole one in the fifth to go ahead 7-3 at the break, leaving Great Britain wit much to do to rescue the match.

Coming back in six, Sweden stole another point when Morrison only got two stones on her final triple attempt. Down five, the British team kept themselves alive with two in the seventh to cut the deficit down to three.

Simply needing to limit Jackson for the rest of the game, Sweden took one in the eighth before conceding two in the ninth. In ten, Hasselborg connected on the final shot of the game to score one and take the victory 10-7.

So far this week, Sweden has been the class of the field, topping both the round robin standings and shooting percentages. Particularly of note, Hasselborg is five percentage points ahead of the next best fourth stone thrower, giving Sweden a massive advantage at the skip position.

With their spot in the playoffs nearly secured, Sweden will face a tough stretch of opponents to close out the round robin. In their next three games, they will play the number one, two and three ranked teams in the world from Canada, Switzerland and South Korea respectively before closing out against China. A victory in any of these games should see the Swedes advance to the knockout round.

Conversely, Great Britain fall to 1-3 with the loss and are in a dire position to reach the medal round. They will need to pull together a string of victories as they take on Denmark, Switzerland and the United States in their next three games.

Olympic Women's Standings - Draw 6

Sweden (Hasselborg): 5-0
The United States (Peterson): 4-1
Switzerland (Tirinzoni): 3-1
Denmark (Dupont): 3-2
South Korea (Gim): 3-2
China (Wang): 2-2
Great Britain (Jackson): 1-3
Canada (Homan): 1-3
Japan (Yoshimura): 1-4
Italy (Constantini): 0-5

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