Switzerland beat defending champions Sweden by 8-7 in Sunday morning’s third round-robin session of the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship.
This was a first win for the Swiss, as Korea and Czech Republic also carved out their first victories in this session. Korea beat Scotland 9-6 while Czech Republic were 9-4 winners over Germany. Finland beat Denmark 10-6 in the fourth game of this session to join Canada, who sat out this session, at the top of the rankings.
Sweden looked to be well on their way in the game against Switzerland when, in the fifth end, their skip Niklas Edin played a hit on a Swiss stone to score four points and take a 6-2 lead. However, Switzerland battled on and in the eighth end were unlucky just to score two points with a hit on a Swedish stone. This reduced Sweden’s lead to 7-5. Switzerland then had a single steal in the ninth when Edin missed a raise take-out and then stole two more in the tenth for an 8-7 win when Edin flashed the double take-out.
Scotland versus Korea
The game between Korea and Scotland was level at 2-2 when, in the fourth end, Korean skip Kim Soo-Hyuk played a double hit to score two points and take a 4-2 lead. In the eighth end, Korea led by 5-4 when Scotland’s fourth player Ross Paterson played a delicate tap-out to score two points and move his team to a 6-5 lead. Korea scored two more in the ninth to re-take the lead at 7-6 and then won the game by 9-6 when the Scots gave up a steal of two in the tenth end, after missing a runback double take-out.
Czech Republic versus Germany
Against Germany, Czech Republic scored two points in the fourth end to take a 3-1 lead and then, in the fifth, Germany’s skip Sixten Totzek’s last stone caught a guard on the way into the house to give up a game-changing steal of three that increased the Czech lead to 6-1. The Czechs then went on to win by 9-4.
After this first win of the campaign, their skip Lukas Klima said, “It’s always great to get the first win and it’s better that we get it sooner than later, so right now we’re pleased.”
He added, “The ice was more swingy there and we got hold of it sooner than them. We put a lot of pressure on them in the fourth and then fortunately for us they made a mistake in the fifth and we just had to keep it simple from then.”
Finland versus Denmark
In the fourth game of the session, Denmark held a 4-1 lead over Finland at the fifth end break, but the game changed after that. In the sixth end Finnish skip Kalle Kiiskinen played a draw to score three points and level the game at 4-4. Then, in the seventh end, Denmark gave up a steal of three points when a hit by their skip Tobias Thune rolled the wrong way, giving Finland the lead for the first time, at 7-4. A further three points in the ninth sealed Finland’s 10-6 win.
After the game, Kiiskinen said, “That was a nice way to finish the game. We really struggled in the first half but in the second half we were better. We said at the break that we had to wake up and start playing. We’ll take that second half performance now and move on to the next one.”
Session three scores: Switzerland 8-7 Sweden; Scotland 6-9 Korea; Czech Republic 9-4 Germany; Finland 10-6 Denmark
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