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Zero room for error for Holland

Canadian Amber Holland’s margin for error is now down to zero.
Denmark Women Curling Worlds
Canada skip Amber Holland calls a shot during her 5-4 loss to Sweden at the 2011 World Women’s Curling Championships in Esbjerg

ESBJERG, Denmark — Canadian Amber Holland’s margin for error is now down to zero.

Sweden’s Anette Norberg scored one in the 10th end to edge Holland’s Regina rink 5-4 on Wednesday at the Capital One World Women’s Curling Championship.

Norberg (9-1) remained atop the overall standings with the victory.

Holland (5-4) suffered her first loss in five games. Earlier on Wednesday, she scored three in the ninth for a 7-4 victory over Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott.

But in Holland’s mind, to make the tournament playoffs she can’t afford to lose another game. That means taking care of business against both Korea and Germany in her final round-robin games Thursday.

“You know that four losses is max,” she said. “You don’t want to go beyond that.”

China, Denmark and Russia are tied for second with 6-3 records. Canada and the Swiss were tied in fifth at 5-4.

Holland opened the scoring against Sweden with two in the second before Norberg tied the contest with a pair in the fourth. The two rinks exchanged single points in the fifth and sixth ends before Norberg went ahead 4-3 with one in the seventh.

Holland countered with one in the eighth to tie the score 4-4. After blanking the ninth, Norberg recorded the winning point in the 10th.

“We didn’t play as sharp as we could,” Holland said. “We let them have some opportunities so that’s the difference but we still made them make the shots.

“That was a bit of a dip. We didn’t manage the draw weight as well in this game so we definitely need to make sure that we’re outing rocks in good spots. We didn’t put them in the positions that we wanted, but that happens.”

And while Sweden remains the toast of the competition, Holland said the Swedes can certainly be had.

“They’re beatable, everybody’s beatable,” she said. “It depends on the day and the ice and the rocks.

“We definitely had control of that game and we just let it slip away. It was the middle ends where we lost control there.”

The turning point in Holland’s win over Switzerland came in the ninth end when Ott’s rock rolled out, leaving Holland with an open hit for the decisive three points.

In the 10th end, Canada simply ran the Swiss out of rocks to cement the victory.

“It’s always fun when you’re making shots and things are going your way,” Holland said. “Early in the game things weren’t going our way but towards the end, we were pretty strong.

“We were a little fortunate with Mirjam hitting and rolling out. But we’d put our rocks in some good spots and knew we were getting our one anyway.”