![]() Joel Retornaz of Cembra, Italy won twice on Wednesday's opening day at the AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic. (photo: Anil Mungal, GSOC) Retornaz started with hammer, winning the pre-game draw to the button for the advantage. After a blank in the first end, Shuster, with Chris Plys, Matt Hamilton and John Landsteiner, got the jump on Retornaz, stealing a point to take the early lead. Following another blank end from Retornaz, Shuster forced the Italians to a single point to take hammer advantage into the game's second half. Shuster scored the first multiple-point end in the fifth end, taking a 3-1 lead. Retornaz, with Amos Mosaner, Sebastiano Arman and Mattia Giovanella, came back with their own pair in the sixth end, then stole single points in the seventh and eighth ends to finish a 5-3 victory. On Wednesday's opening draw, Retornaz defeated Scotland's Kyle Waddell 6-5, scoring a single point in the eighth end for the win. Retornaz joins Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller as the early leader with two wins. Shuster defeated Montreal's Felix Asselin, 8-4 on the opening draw as part of COGECO YourTV coverage of sheet 5. Both teams finish Wednesday with 1-1 records, as did Niklas Edin of Sweden and Yves Stocker of Switzerland. Waddell dropped to 0-2 after the opening day. Retornaz returns to the ice Thursday at 8 pm Eastern Time (ET), playing Pierre-Luc Morissette of Quebec City. Retornaz plays one game Friday, taking on Owen Purcell of Halifax at 11 am, then finishing the round-robin on Saturday against Asselin at 8 pm. Starting the season as the top-ranked team on the World Curling Team Rankings, Retornaz has fallen to second after Mouat won twice already on Tour. Mouat has played three events already, filling their two allowable event counters with wins at the Baden Masters and Euro Super Series. In contrast, Retornaz had played only once, reaching the quarterfinals at the Baden Masters. Mouat holds a 30-point lead on Retornaz, though with Retornaz counting only one event, every point goes towards cutting the deficit. For Mouat, only slight improvement can come from winning the AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic, with 52.5 points on the line for first place. |