Defending champ Wrana secures bye to Princess Auto Players’ Championship semifinals

TORONTO — Isabella Wranå and her Swedish squad will continue their title defence into the semifinals at the Princess Auto Players’ Championship.

Wranå secured a bye with a 5-4 victory over Italy’s Team Stefania Constantini during Draw 14 action Friday.

Team Wranå finished pool play at 4-1, identical to their round-robin record here last season, while Constantini had the complete opposite mark and was eliminated from contention at 1-4.

“It feels very good,” Wranå said. “It’s super nice to be able to get that semifinal place and we’re pumped to be playing tomorrow for more.”

Memories of capturing her first career Grand Slam of Curling title last year here at the Mattamy Athletic Centre are starting to flood back for Wranå.

“We love to play here in Toronto,” Wranå said. “It feels really nice and cool to be in the playoffs here again.”

Wranå also said it’s awesome to have some crowd support as Swedish flags have been spotted in the stands.

“We’ve had people from Sweden who flew from here to cheer us on, but also friends here in Canada who came over to watch us,” Wranå said. “It’s really nice to get some home crowd sometimes because we usually don’t get it here.”

Wranå built a 3-0 lead with a deuce in the second and a steal of one in the third. After Constantini was limited to a single in the fourth, Wranå added a point right back in the fifth and stole one in the sixth for a 5-1 advantage.

Constantini took two in the seventh, however, that gave Wranå the hammer coming home and she was fine giving up a point to hold on for the victory.

“It felt really well,” Wranå said. “We played good the whole game. We felt confident and it was very fun playing today.”

Wranå, whose lone loss came against Ottawa’s Team Rachel Homan, will hold the No. 2 seed in the playoffs. Homan holds the top spot after wrapping up round-robin play earlier undefeated at 5-0.

Elsewhere in Draw 14, Kerri Einarson and her team from Gimli, Man., are still in the mix for now following a 7-6 extra-end victory over South Korea’s Team Eun-Jung Kim.

Einarson (2-3) has a chance to possibly play in a tiebreaker for the final playoff spot pending the results of the final round-robin draw in the evening.

Kim is already playoff-bound with a 3-2 record.

In men’s play, Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat (4-1) earned a bye to the semifinals after scoring three in the eighth end in a 5-4 victory over Calgary’s Team Kevin Koe (1-4).

Winnipeg’s Team Matt Dunstone (2-3) doubled up with a 6-3 win to bounce Scotland’s Team James Craik (1-4).

UP NEXT

Round-robin play wraps up with Draw 15 at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT on Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet+.

NOTES

The Princess Auto Players’ Championship is the fifth and final Grand Slam of Curling event of the season featuring the top 12 men’s teams and top 12 women’s teams from around the world. … Both divisions are split into two pools of six for round-robin play. The best six teams advance to the playoffs with the top two receiving byes to the semifinals. If necessary, a tiebreaker round will be played Saturday morning to determine the final playoff berths. … The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Saturday with the finals on tap Sunday.

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