China beat defending champions Sweden on day one

Saturday evening saw defending champions Sweden beaten 9-5 by China in what was the surprise result of the opening day at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship 2025 in Moose Jaw, Canada.

In the tenth end of this game, China led by 6-5. Sweden had a chance to score one point to level the game and force an extra end, but their skip Niklas Edin came up short with his final draw, giving China a steal of three points and that 9-5 win.

After this, China skip Xu Xiaoming said, “That was a really good start but it’s a long week, so now we have to focus game by game.”

Team China’s Li Zhichao celebrates win over Sweden © World Curling / Jeffrey Au

Two win day for Canada

Elsewhere, two wins for Canada — a 7-3 win over Japan followed by a 7-5 win over European champions Germany — put the hosts alone at the top of the rankings, on two wins and no losses so far.

Canada were pressed all the way by Germany. By the ninth end, the Canadians led by 6-2 when German skip Marc Muskatewitz played a split tap-up on one of his own stones to score three points and reduce Canada’s lead to 6-5. The Canadians survived this scare, to win by 7-5.

Team Canada’s Brett Gallant © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Five more teams secure first wins

Elsewhere, Czechia, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland and United States all had opening day wins.

Czechia beat Korea by 6-5, while Scotland were 12-2 winners over Austria in just six ends.

After his victory, Scotland skip Bruce Mouat said, “We played the Austrian boys in the Europeans and we knew we’d have to play well to beat them.”

Switzerland beat Norway by 7-4 in the opening session, and after this game, Switzerland skip Yannick Schwaller said, “I’m so proud of how we played today, the whole team was amazing.”

He added, “This win over Norway might be important at the end of the week.”

Team Switzerland’s Benoit Schwarz-Van Berkel and Sven Michel © World Curling / Jeffrey Au

Italy redeem themselves in evening session

United States beat Italy by 7-6 in their only game of the day, but Italy then came back strong to defeat Korea by 9-2. In the fifth end of this game, with the Italians already ahead by 5-2, skip Joel Retornaz succeeded with a double take-out to score two more points and improve his team’s lead to 7-2. Italy went on to win by 9-2 in the sixth end.

After his team’s won one, lost one day, Retornaz said, “Performance-wise, I don’t think it was an up and down day.

“We lost our first game against a well-played Team United States. We bounced back tonight with a good performance again, so I’m happy about the team and the performance we’ve had.”

Meanwhile, United States skip Korey Dropkin reflected on his team’s opening win over the Italians, saying, “It’s always nice to open up a championship with a win, and against a team as strong as Italy, that’s huge for us.

“The name of the game is just to get better every time.”