Capital One World Men’s Championship – Day 4
Standings:
Curling
Canada 6-1
Norway 6-1
Scotland 6-1
Denmark 5-2
Germany 4-3
USA 4-3
Switzerland 3-4
China 2-5
France 2-5
Italy 2-5
Sweden 2-5
Japan 0-7
Session 9: USA 7, France 5 (extra end); Denmark 10, Sweden 4; Canada 6, Scotland 2; Switzerland 1, Norway 7.
Session 10: Scotland 7, Germany 4; Norway 10, Italy 5; France 9, China 4; Sweden 9, Japan 5.
Session 11: Italy 5, Switzerland 7; Germany 9, Canada 6; Japan 6, Denmark 7 (extra end); China 5, USA 6.
After Tuesday’s play at the Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship, three teams share the lead – Canada, Norway and Scotland, each on six wins and one loss.
In the morning session, Canada’s Kevin Koe blew away Scotland Warwick Smith by 6-2 in just six ends. The Scots never got to grips with this game, and afterwards, Skip Smith said, “we decided to bin that one and start again. If you get that far down against a great team like Canada, you’re as well getting off the ice to start preparing for the next game”. And the tactic proved effective as the Scots went on to beat Germany by 7-4.
The Germans came back on in the evening against Canada, and succeeded where Scotland couldn’t, handing Canada their first loss of the week, by 9-6. Afterwards a pleased German skip Andreas Kapp said, “it’s always nice to win against Canada, but it’s more important for us just to keep contact with the top. Maybe they didn’t expect that we would play the same aggressive way as they play. The game was fun, and at the end, if you win 9-6 against Canada – good”.
Norway had two good wins, beating Switzerland by 7-1 and then grabbing a 10-5 win over hosts Italy. After the Switzerland game, Torger Nergard, who has been skipping Norway in the absence of incapacitated Thomas Ulsrud, said, “we started off a bit rusty but after a couple of bad ends we played pretty good. But we will always do our best, even if Thomas is here or not”.
USA’s Pete Fenson also had a tense day, but produced two good wins to keep his play-off hopes alive. He beat France by 7-5 after an extra end before going on to seal a last-stone 6-5 win over China in the evening with a nerveless final draw.
“It was a tight match” said French Skip Thomas Dufour after their game in the morning against the USA “since the beginning of the championship we’ve not been playing too badly, but it’s incredible we just can’t manage to win more games.” France later went on to beat China 9-4 in afternoon draw.
Another team that won twice on Tuesday was Denmark – 10-4 against a Swedish team that lost skip Per Carlsen with a tweaked back, and the by 7-6 after an extra end against Japan. Commenting, Danish coach James Dryburgh said, “The boys just have to get their heads around it and keep on going. We’ve got the teams that are below us now so if we keep ourselves in a good frame of mind, we should be OK”.
Meanwhile, Japan, now on seven losses, remains the only winless team of the week.
Source: World Curling Federation
