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TORONTO — Rachel Homan remained perfect at the Grand Slam of Curling’s season-ending Players’ Championship with an 8-3 win over Jennifer Jones in Thursday’s evening draw.
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Tied 2-2 after three ends, Homan’s Ottawa rink built a 5-2 lead after the fifth. Jones took one point in the sixth before Homan responded with three in the seventh to win the rematch of this year’s Canadian women’s championship final.
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Homan, who led Canada to a world women’s curling title last month, improved to 4-0 to tie Silvana Tirinzoni atop the women’s standings.
The Swiss skip took a 7-3 win over Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., (0-3) in Thursday’s second draw.
Jones, a six-time Canadian champion, two-time world champion, Olympic gold medallist and 17-time Grand Slam winner, is stepping away from four-player curling after this tournament. Her Winnipeg rink fell to 1-3.
In other Draw 11 results, Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., (2-2) won 6-5 over Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher (1-3), Scotland’s Ross Whyte (3-1) took a 7-5 decision against Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller (1-3) and South Korea’s Gim Eun-ji (3-1) beat Switzerland’s Xenia Schwaller (1-3) by a score of 5-4.
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Earlier Thursday, Homan earned a 7-4 win over Sweden’s Isabella Wrana.
Homan had back-to-back one-point steals in the sixth and seventh ends to come out on top in what had been a back-and-forth affair up to that point.
Wrana rebounded with an 8-7 win over fellow Swede Anna Hasselborg (1-2) in Thursday’s afternoon draw to improve her record to 3-1. The game was tied 7-7 after seven ends, but Wrana had the hammer in the eighth and made it count.
In other results from the afternoon session, Mike McEwen improved to 3-0 after scoring one in an extra ninth end for a 6-5 win over fellow Winnipegger Matt Dunstone (1-2). McEwen’s team is the last unbeaten side in the men’s competition.
Scotland’s Bruce Mouat came back from a 5-3 loss to Bottcher with a 7-5 win over world men’s champion Niklas Edin of Sweden. The result improved Mouat’s record to 3-1 while Edin dropped to 1-2.
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South Korea’s Kim Eunjung (3-1) picked up her second win of the day, defeating Winnipeg’s Kaitlyn Lawes 4-3. Lawes saw her record drop to 0-3.
Earlier in Thursday’s second draw, men’s world silver medallist Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., improved to 2-1 with a 6-1 win over Calgary’s Kevin Koe (1-2); Italy’s Joel Retornaz (2-2) scored an 8-4 win over Scotland’s James Craik (1-2); and Stefania Constantini of Italy (1-2) posted an 8-5 win over Japan’s Satsuke Fujisawa (1-3).
In the other morning draw games, Whyte scored five over the first two ends in a 7-2 win over Dunstone, and Kim posted an 8-1 rout of Gim in a showdown of South Korean squads.
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