Japan upsets Switzerland to reach curling final

BEIJING – Japan surprised world champion Switzerland 8-6 within the Beijing Winter Olympics girls’s curling semifinals Friday, reserving its ticket to the gold-medal match in opposition to Nice Britain.

Skip Satsuki Fujisawa and staff Loco Solare pulled off the upset a day after being handily overwhelmed 8-4 by the top-ranked Swiss of their closing round-robin sport.

The subsequent problem can be Nice Britain, who drubbed Japan 10-4 within the spherical robin and superior a 12-11 winner over Sweden in Friday’s different semifinal.

Both approach, Japan, the 2018 bronze medalist, will now take at the very least one step up the rostrum on Saturday, with the nation’s best-ever Olympic curling consequence assured.

The semifinal win marked a dramatic turnaround for Japan, which simply scraped into the playoffs through the draw-shot problem tiebreaker following its loss Thursday to Switzerland, which topped the spherical robin with an 8-1 file.

“I didn’t really feel all that a lot strain,” Fujisawa mentioned. “You may say that my indecision harm us yesterday, influenced our ways and our photographs.”

“However as we speak we had quite a lot of time from morning till our night sport to speak every thing over completely as a staff and determine our strategy. That was the large factor.”

Japan had began the round-robin sport positively earlier than a scarcity of precision with the hammer allowed Switzerland skip Silvana Tirinzoni and her world champion aspect to take management.

The staff from Hokkaido’s Kitami averted such errors within the semifinal, wanting sharp from the opening finish.

After Switzerland blanked the primary, the edges scored one every with the hammer till Japan seized the momentum with a giant fifth finish.

With the entrance two and third Chinami Yoshida laying the inspiration, Fujisawa threw an excellent double takeout with the ultimate stone to attain 4 and go up 5-2.

“Our focus was not about desirous to win as a lot because it was about making good photographs, staff photographs, one after one other,” lead Yurika Yoshida mentioned.

Japan prolonged the lead by stealing one within the sixth earlier than Switzerland hit again with a three-ender to make it 6-5 by means of seven.

With Japan holding serve for one within the eighth, Switzerland wanted to go large on its final regulation finish with the hammer.

It regarded poised for a number of factors after Yoshida missed badly on a double takeout try, however Fujisawa dug Japan out of hazard to restrict Switzerland to at least one.

Second Yumi Suzuki mentioned the staff has discovered itself right here on the ice.

“Satchan (Fujisawa) stored making nice photographs, however all of us performed our elements making the photographs we would have liked to make. We found the standard inside ourselves,” she mentioned.

Japan coach J.D. Lind lauded his aspect for turning issues round simply 24 hours after ending the spherical robin with a heavy defeat.

“The best way that this staff handles adversity and bounces again from troublesome conditions is unquestionably the most important energy that they’ve,” the Canadian-born Lind mentioned. “They’re an incredible group that work rather well collectively (and) help one another.”