Canada’s Rachel Homan will have a rematch against South Korea’s Eunji Gim in semifinal play Saturday at the world women’s curling championship in Sydney, N.S.
Gim earned a spot in the final four with a 6-3 victory over Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg in a morning qualification game at Centre 200.
Homan earned a direct berth to the afternoon semifinal as the top seed after posting an 11-1 round-robin record. Her lone loss was to Gim in a playoff tune-up on Friday night with the top spot already secured.
Italy’s Stefania Constantini beat Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont 7-4 in the other qualification game. Constantini will face defending champion Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland in the other semifinal.
Semifinal winners will play for the gold medal Sunday. Losing teams will meet for bronze earlier in the day.
Gim had the hammer in the ninth end against Hasselborg and made a soft raise for a deuce and a 5-3 lead.
Swedish third Sara McManus flashed her final throw in the 10th and Gim followed by positioning her stones on opposite sides of the eight-foot ring.
Hasselborg tried a big-weight double-takeout but the stone rolled under, giving South Korea a single point and the win.
In the other qualifier, Italy controlled the second half of the game. Constantini stole a pair in the seventh end and forced Denmark to a single in the ninth before running Dupont out of rocks.
Homan is looking for her first world title since winning gold in 2017 in Beijing. Canada last won gold at this event in 2018 when Jennifer Jones was victorious in North Bay, Ont.
Tirinzoni has won four straight world titles. Homan beat her in round-robin play to end the Swiss skip’s 42-game winning streak at this competition.
Homan’s lone round-robin loss ended her team’s 27-game overall win streak. Her top-ranked Ottawa-based team of Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes entered the semifinal with a season record of 60-6.
The third-ranked Gim and ninth-ranked Constantini are both playing in this event for the fifth time. Neither skip has reached the women’s world podium before. Constantini won Olympic gold in mixed doubles at the 2022 Beijing Games.
