Sweden secures a place in the women’s European final
Defending champions Sweden beat Russia 5-4 in the ladies’ first semifinal of the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships in Lillehammer, Norway, to advance to Saturday’s gold medal final.
Russia opened the scoring with one point in the first end. At the other end, Sweden’s jumper Anna Hasselborg made a move on the button inside a Russian stone that was already in the house, to score a point and equalize to 1-1.
In the third end, Russia’s jumper Alina Kovaleva played a double withdrawal with her last stone to score another single point and regain the lead in the match, 2-1.
In the fourth end, Sweden once again had an advantage on the last stone and this time their jump Hasselborg misjudged only a tap attempt to score two points, and her stone rolled too far. This meant that the Swedes had to settle for just one point to equalize again, 2-2.
Russia crushed the fifth end and made a breakthrough in the sixth end when Kovaleva was able to pull his last stone into position to score two points and take a 4-2 lead.
Sweden missed the seventh end. In the eighth end, Russia’s Kovaleva played a raise with his last stone at the end, which forced Sweden to drop this end because they were looking for a big point.
In the ninth finish, Sweden equalized to 4-4 when their ship Hasselborg pulled into the house and scored two points.
At the tenth end, Hasselborg played an angular raise of a Russian stone and left his own sitting behind protection. The Russian Kovaleva then tried a double selection, but one of the Swedish stones got stuck on the other on the way out. It left a Swedish stone in the standings.
This one-point theft gave Sweden a 5-4 win. Sweden now moves on to the winner of the second semifinal between the table tops Scotland and Germany for gold medals on Saturday afternoon.
Russia will play against the loser in that match for bronze medals on Friday night.
After the match, the Swedish jumper Anna Hasselborg said, “This was a fight clearly. They started with a hammer, so we knew it would be a tight match. We wanted a hammer in the tenth, but this was ours, so we have turn who has it. ”
And when she thought about the end of the game, she added, “When she threw her shot – it’s out of your control. I thought she would make it, she does a lot of them and she’s a really good player, so yes … we were lucky.”
See all broadcast games from Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2021 online, exclusively at The curling channel.
The result for the ladies’ first semifinal: Russia 4-5 Sweden.
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