STEINBACH, Man — The milestone 25th Grand Slam of Curling season wrapped up with another historic moment.
Switzerland's Team Silvana Tirinzoni became the first to three-peat in the prestigious Crown Royal Players' Championship after holding on for a 6-5 victory over Manitoba's own Team Kerri Einarson in Sunday's women's final.
"I didn't think that's even possible," Tirinzoni said. "The Players’ are the top 12 teams in the world, and you could see it this week. Everyone is beating everyone a little bit, so it's a very tough field, and to win it three times in a row, unreal."
It's the seventh career Grand Slam of Curling title for Tirinzoni, who throws third stones on her team and is supported by fourth Alina Pätz, second Carole Howald and lead Selina Witschonke. The Aarau-based club collected $60,000 from the prize purse.
"It feels amazing," Pätz said. "We felt great all week, just tried to do our job and tried to do it as best as we could. We needed a little bit of luck in the last stand here to pull that win out, but just happy we go away with the win."
Tirinzoni reached the women's final in all five Grand Slam events this season, a streak that actually stretches to six when you include last year's Players' Championship.
The team finished runner-up to Canada's Team Rachel Homan at the AMJ Masters, CO-OP Tour Challenge and KIOTI GSOC Tahoe before defeating Japan's Team Satsuki Fujisawa to claim the HearingLife Canadian Open three weeks ago.
Tirinzoni topped the round-robin table with a 3-1-0-1 record (11 points), with her lone loss coming against Einarson in their final group game Friday night. The No. 1 seed earned Tirinzoni a bye to the semifinals and a 7-4 victory over South Korea's Team Eun-ji Gim booked a spot in the championship finale.
Einarson went 3-0-0-2 (nine points) in pool play, stole the winning point in the extra end to edge Sweden's Team Isabella Wranå 8-7 in the quarterfinals and also earned a 7-6 extra-end victory over Canada's Team Rachel Homan in the semifinals.
Tirinzoni got out to a great start, converting for a deuce in the first and stealing one in the second, as Einarson's raise double attempt missed the back one.
The six-time Grand Slam champ Einarson bounced back in the third with a hit and stick for a deuce, but Pätz pulled off a raise to match in the fourth and restore the three-point advantage at 5-2.
Einarson drew for a deuce to five and forced Pätz to hit for a single in six.
Trailing by two, Einarson blanked the seventh to retain the hammer coming home for an absolutely crazy final frame. Pätz had only eight seconds left of thinking time when she delivered her final rock, and it was looking like Einarson could score three, two, one or even give up a steal with a quarry of granite cluttering the house.
Einarson chucked her rock into the pile, but when the dust settled, it was just one point.
"Team Einarson was scoring great all week, so we knew that even if we're up three, she's not going to let go," Tirinzoni said. "She scored deuces twice and that's keeping the game close. At the end, I’ve never had an end like that where I didn't know what to do, really."
"If you play a good team like Kerri's team, it's always tough," Pätz added. "It's just like you see if you can take away any chances from them, and we try to do that.
"It cost us a lot of time, so at the end, we just were a little short on time. Our heads were spinning, but I was just lucky and happy we could pull out the win."
The Gimli-based club of Einarson, third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Karlee Burgess had the Southeast Event Centre crowd roaring all week and earned $35,000 from the prize purse.
