BEIJING — Canadian teams will play for all three championships at the Curling World Cup Grand Final.
Kevin Koe, in the men's competition, Jennifer Jones, in the women's, and Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres, in mixed doubles, all advanced to their respective finals after round-robin play concluded Saturday.
Calgary's Koe secured a spot in the men's final with two victories at Shougang Arena — a 4-3 win over Norway's Thomas Ulsrud and a 7-6 win over Scotland's Ross Paterson.
"It's been a bit of a grind. I mean obviously we've had good games and our bad games have been really bad, but it's kind of the way we've been all year," Koe said. "We've ground out the wins when we needed them. We played good today and got some help to get straight into the finals, so we're really happy."
Both Canada and Scotland finished the round robin at 4-2. Koe received the spot in the final because he defeated Scotland twice during the double round robin.
Koe will play China's Qiang Zou (4-2) in the men's final later Saturday.
Canada's mixed doubles team of Walker and Muyres, from Edmonton and Saskatoon, respectively, snatched first place in their pool with a 9-4 win against Switzerland's Michele Jaeggi and Sven Michel.
Walker and Muyres take on 2018 Olympic bronze-medallists Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten of Norway (5-1) on Sunday.
In the women's competition, Jones lost both of her games on Saturday — 7-4 to China's Yilun Jiang and 6-5 to American Nina Roth — but still placed first overall in her pool. The Winnipeg skip will take on Switzerland's Silvana Tirinzoni (4-2) in the women's final Sunday.
"We had a great start against America but maybe lost focus in the third and fourth ends. Then we had a couple of unfortunate misses to finish the game," said Jones' second Shannon Birchard. "We are going to have to bounce back against Team Silvana Tirinzoni because they have been playing super good lately and we'll need to be on our game."
The Canadian Press
