Canada's Kerri Einarson opened the Pan Continental Curling Championships on Sunday with a 9-2 rout of Taiwan's Cynthia Lu at the Kelowna Curling Club.
The event serves as a world championship qualifier for countries outside Europe.
Einarson, from Camp Morton, Man., stole a pair in the fourth end and added a steal of three more points in the fifth to pull away.
Lu made a single in the sixth end and the teams shook hands after Einarson made a raise takeout for a deuce in the seventh.
In other early results, South Korea’s Eunji Gim beat Mexico’s Team Adriana Camarena 10-1, Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa beat New Zealand's Jessica Smith 9-4 and American Tabitha Peterson topped Australia's Jennifer Westhagen 10-4.
Canada will play Japan in the evening draw.
In men's round-robin play, Brad Gushue of St. John's, N.L., was upset 8-5 by South Korea's Jongduk Park on Sunday afternoon.
Gushue, the defending champion, needs a top-five finish to book Canada's spot in the March 30-April 7 world playdowns in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
Gushue, vice-skip Mark Nichols, second E.J. Harnden, lead Geoff Walker and coach Caleb Flaxey also started last season’s Pan Continentals with a loss. In 2022, the United States won the opening round-robin victory against the Canadians.
This year, the Canadians are backed by alternate Jim Cotter from nearby Vernon, B.C., and national coach Jeff Stoughton.
"My draw in the fifth end was the turning point. I threw what I wanted and the ice was a little heavier in one direction than the other and we didn’t catch onto it as early as we should have and it cost us,” said Gushue.
“It’s a challenging environment to curl in; I’m not going to lie. I think there’s enough here to work with where we can play a little bit better than we did today and just hopefully not miss any more draws against two.”
Team Gushue returns to the Kelowna Curling Club on Monday morning with a game against New Zealand’s Team Anton Hood (1-0).
In other men's games, Riku Yanagisawa of Japan beat Randolph Shen of Chinese-Taipei 12-2 in six ends, Andrew Stopera of the United States rocked Rayad Husain of Guyana 19-0 in six ends, and Anton Hood of New Zealand edged Jay Merchant of Australia 8-6.
Einarson settled for a third-place finish at the inaugural edition of the Pan Continental championship last year.
As host, Canada has an automatic entry at the March 16-24 world women's championship in Sydney, N.S.
