Only one women's game today. Italy.
photo: Hala Tondiraba in Tallinn.
rnThe men are so far coming through the competition in Group B without any problems, the results are relatively close, but it's all wins and that's important. It was nice to have breakfast at a normal time in the morning, chat for a while and then head to the hall shortly after noon. There was some paper the rocks that night so we were all curious to see how that would manifest itself. Although Mark wrote that it would have no effect on the spin, and that the reason was to try to keep the stones in good condition until the end of the competition, we didn't really believe it. Already practice had shown that we needed to add to the spin to keep the stones in the right line, but it also added about half a foot to a foot to the spin rate. After four ends, the score was tied 3 to 3. In the fifth, after a series of failed hit and rolls played by both teams, we picked up a hit and a small roll for a one against a four, but the stone spun the other way and it was two points for the opposition. The Italians played the game very well. Zappone and Romei played well above their average. After nine ends the score was tied 6-6 and we went into the tenth end without an advantage. Good spacing gave us a chance to place the final draw before the last stone, so that the Italian would have had a big problem to throw better. However, shortly after the hog line the stone turned unexpectedly more and bounced off ours, offering Zappone a hit and stay at one. The Italian skip played it without any problems and the win goes to her opponent. Luck is fickle sometimes, but since it didn't favor us in the afternoon duel yesterday, it's about time it snuggled up to us. Plus, I dealt with a conflict with the timekeeper who robbed us of ten seconds on a timeout. Alan did apologize, but of course it didn't change anything. Two thirds of the tournament is in the past and we have to switch on for the last third.