NISKU, Alta. — Yannick Schwaller has his eyes on the prize at the Co-op Canadian Open as he looks to capture his first career Grand Slam of Curling title.
Schwaller and his Swiss squad took one step closer to that goal by qualifying for the playoffs with an 8-3 victory over Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs during Draw 14 Friday at the Silent Ice Center.
Team Schwaller finished round-robin play with a 3-1 record to lock up a spot in the quarterfinals and avoid a potential logjam for one of the final spots.
“It’s awesome,” Schwaller said. “It’s what we are here for, obviously. We love playing at the Slams. We also have quite a good record, so we want to keep that going with qualifying but … it’s time for the playoff push.”
Thievery was the name of the game as things took an unexpected turn in the fourth end. Jacobs held the hammer trailing by one and looked to make a peel shot to blank, however, his shooter just grazed Schwaller’s shot rock and it stuck around in the house for a steal.
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Things went awry again for Team Jacobs in the fifth end with Schwaller sitting three stones. Jacobs attempted a runback but missed the cluster to concede them all and fall behind 6-1.
“The first steal kind of came out of nowhere,” said Schwaller, who throws third stones on his team. “A crazy roll from (fourth) Benoît (Schwarz-van Berkel) across the face there with eight seconds behind the corner guard. You also need a bit of luck for those to go as good as it was. A tough shot for him for the blank.
“They were not quite on their best game and we just thunked every rock in there in the fifth end and that led to the steal of three.”
Jacobs recovered with a draw for a deuce in the sixth, however, Schwaller took two right back in the seventh that iced the game.
Schwaller was on the other side of a big steal earlier in the week during his team’s 8-1 loss to Team Marco Hösli in an all-Swiss showdown, but he’s quite pleased his team has started playing better and didn’t make many mistakes against Jacobs.
“There’s still room for improvement,” Schwaller said. “I’m very happy we were able to bring our ‘A’ game for our last round-robin game, and I hope we can go for it in the playoffs as well with this performance.”
