Canada's Homan, Morris fall short vs. Sweden in mixed doubles curling
Canadians see 3-match win streak snapped after struggling to recover from slow start
Canada's Rachel Homan and John Morris saw their three match winning streak snapped in mixed doubles curling on Saturday at the Beijing Olympics.
The Canadians came out on the wrong end of a 6-2 loss in seven ends to Sweden's Oskar Eriksson and Almida de Val in a marquee match-up between two of the top pairings in the competition.
Italy (5-0) tops the standings ahead of Sweden (5-2) and Great Britain (4-1). Canada and the United States are tied at 3-2, just ahead of China, the Czech Republic and Norway (2-3). Switzerland (1-4) and Australia (0-7) sit at the bottom of the table.
"We've been in this situation before … we just have to move on and take learnings from our last game, and have a good plan for [the next game]," Homan said.
Morris added: "We're good but not good enough. This week we're almost perfect. They earned that one. We're going to have a short memory, we're going to regroup here. We've got to get into a good mind frame for tonight because we got a big game against the USA."
WATCH | Homan, Morris fall to Sweden for 2nd loss
Earlier in the day, Sweden rolled to a 6-1 win over Switzerland, while Canada hit the ice for the first time on Saturday in this contest.
"Today was a really, really good day. We're playing the best curling we've played so far this week. It's about time; [we're] stepping up our game, and showing that we are one of the contenders to get to the playoffs," Erikkson said.
For the first time in Beijing, Canada had the hammer to begin a match on Saturday, but it couldn't take advantage as Sweden stole one in the first end.
The Swedes played five great rocks in a row in the next end, including a number of guards, to record back-to-back steals and double their advantage.
Homan played a hit-and-roll shot to put Canada on the board in the third end, but Eriksson threw a double knockout and de Val drew to the button in the fourth to score three and go up 5-1.
"If we played a little bit different, a different tactic, we could have bailed it sooner. So we're going to look at that," Morris said of the fourth end.
WATCH | Homan's husband holding down the fort at home:
Canada scored one in the next end to cut into Sweden's lead. Facing a must-steal situation in the sixth end, the Canadians came up short as de Val scored one on a take-out with the final rock.
A rare miss by Eriksson with Sweden's second stone of the seventh end offered Canada a glimmer of hope. But the Canadians couldn't take advantage and the two teams shook hands to end the game.
Canada returns to action later on Saturday vs. the United States (7:05 a.m. ET).
All competitions will be streamed live on CBC Gem, the CBC Sports app and CBC Sports' Beijing 2022 website.
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