Perth curlers once again starred among the world’s best to win the weekend’s Aberdeen International.
Robin Brydone and Duncan McFadzean were, as usual, on the ice alongside Ross Whyte and Euan Kyle with Team Whyte.
Their week had started strongly and continued on that front by navigating through the round robin stages unbeaten.
Germany’s Benny Kapp was toppled in the quarter-final before an impressive extra end win against Olympic silver medallists Team Mouat in the last four.
Team Retornaz, of Italy, awaited in the final and both quartets were quick to show off their scoring intent.
In the end, however, Brydone, McFadzean, Whyte and Kyle - consistently in the top 10 in the world - edged out a 6-5 extra end triumph.
Skip Whyte said: “The final was a very close battle with Team Retornaz. They have had a great season this year and we always knew it was going to be a very tough match.
“However it’s really nice to get out and get that win over them. It was a very close affair all the way to the extra end with a nice steal in end four which helped us on our way to the victory.”
Former Perth High School student Brydone had been absent in the build-up to the event as he had been on coaching duty with Scotland’s wheelchair mixed doubles team at the World Championships.
“We were interested to see how we would go as Robin has been coaching in Canada for the last two weeks with the Scotland wheelchair mixed doubles team at their World Championships,” Whyte said.
“But he slipped straight back into the team and played really well.
“We have played some really tough teams this week including some of the top 10 teams in the world.
“It was nice to get wins over them and the final result which we were looking for this weekend.”
Team Whyte’s position in the world rankings means they are becoming regulars at Grand Slam of Curling events, the most lucrative tournaments on the calendar.
Beating teams that have enjoyed success at that level sets them up well for remaining tournaments this season - The Players Championship in Toronto (April 11-16) followed by the season-ending Champions Cup in Saskatchewan.
Whyte said: “Beating Grand Slam winners is never easy and Mouat has now a number of those to his name, while Retornaz won one earlier this year, so it feels really good to be on top of the competition where they are in the field.
“This is a good step towards the end of the season and we are looking to progress on this and try to get a couple of good runs in the last two Slams of the year, hopefully allowing us to go on and go deep in both of those competitions for some extra ranking points.”
