LONDON, Ont. — Switzerland's Team Xenia Schwaller scored a 5-4 victory over Canada's Team Kerri Einarson to kick off the Grand Slam of Curling season Tuesday morning during the opening draw of the AMJ Masters.
Schwaller broke a 3-all tie with a tight draw for a deuce in the seventh end that came down to a measure to determine the second point.
Einarson was looking for the equalizer in the eighth end to force a draw-to-the-button shootout, but she came up short on her last shot and counted just a single.
Elsewhere in Draw 1, Team Momoha Tabata hit and rolled in to score four points in the seventh end to defeat Team Satsuki Fujisawa 8-4 in an all-Japanese matchup.
In men's play, Xiaoming Xu won his skip debut in the Grand Slam of Curling, scoring three in the seventh and stealing three in the eighth to lift his Chinese team to a 10-5 victory over Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller.
Norway’s Team Magnus Ramsfjell scored two in the eighth end to edge Canada’s Team Mike McEwen 7-6.
UP NEXT
Round-robin play continues with Draw 2 at 11:30 a.m. ET / 8:30 a.m. PT. Tickets are available at GSOCtickets.com with online streaming available at rockchannel.com.
Broadcast coverage on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ begins with Draw 10 Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET / 8:30 a.m. PT.
NOTES
The AMJ Masters is the first Grand Slam of Curling event of the season, featuring 16 of the top men’s teams and 16 of the top women’s teams.
Preliminary play runs through to Friday with the top eight teams qualifying for the playoffs. If necessary, tiebreakers will be played Saturday morning. The quarterfinals and semifinals are set for Saturday. Both finals are scheduled for Sunday.
There are no extra ends during preliminary play and tiebreakers. If a game is tied after eight ends, a draw-to-the-button shootout will determine the winner. Teams receive three points for a regulation win (in eight ends or less), two points for a shootout win and one point for a shootout loss. There will be extra ends for the playoff rounds.
