VERNON, B.C. -- Canada's Jennifer Jones kicked off her 2008 Ford Womens World Curling Championship on a winning note here Saturday night, dropping Switzerland's Mirjam Ott 6-3.
Jones scored the only deuce of the game in the first end as the two teams traded singles the rest of the way. Trailing 5-3 in the tenth end, Ott actually had a circus triple-takeout for a possible game-tying deuce with the last rock of the game but she was only able to remove one of the Canada stones.
The win means Winnipeg's Jones, with third Cathy Overton-Clapham, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn Askin, will now head into Day 2 here on Sunday sporting a 1-0 record and having confidence in the knowledge they have already beaten one of the leading contenders in this field.
"That's a big win against Switzerland," said Officer. "We expect them to be there at the end of the week and we hope to be there too. And that could be a factor at the end of the week."
Ott said she was pleased with how her team played, particularly in what she characterized as a difficult environment before a boisterous crowd at the Greater Vernon Multiplex.
"It's a little hard to play in Canada against Canada," said the two-time Olympic silver medallist. "We're not used to all those spectators."
In other games Saturday evening, Denmark's Angelina Jensen improved to 2-0 with an 8-6 win over Italy's Diana Gaspari; USA's Debbie McCormick evened her record at 1-1 with an 8-4 win over Japan's Moe Meguro; and Germany's Andrea Schoepp needed an extra end to edge Czech Republic's Katerina Urbanova 5-4.
Canada's Jones gets a bye on the abbreviated Sunday morning draw. That draw will see just two games -- China versus Russia and Sweden versus Scotland.
Canada plays twice later in the day, taking on Czech Republic on the afternoon draw and Germany during the evening.
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