Switzerland sit alone in second place after two-win day at LGT World Men’s on day four

Sweden may sit at the top of the table, unbeaten on seven wins so far, but a successful two-win day by Switzerland — by 8–2 over China and then 7–6 against Germany — keeps them hot on the leaders’ heels, with just one win less.

Switzerland continued their campaign on Monday afternoon with a game against China. In the eighth end, with the Swiss already leading by 6–2, their fourth player Philipp Hoesli played a tap-out to score two more points and improve his team’s lead to 8–2.

China then conceded, with 8–2 as the final score.

Team Switzerland © World Curling / Sarah Boeke

The Swiss then came back on to face Germany in the evening session — this was a tight, back-and-forth game all the way and was tied at 6–6 in the tenth end.

Switzerland’s Hoesli then played a hit on the German stone sitting on the button, to score the one point that gave his team a 7–6 win, and second place on the rankings, behind leaders Sweden.

After this game Swiss skip Marco Hoesli said, “Of course it would be great to make a one-two spot, but there are still a lot of games to go.”

Sweden’s Simon Olofsson © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Meanwhile, by their own admission, Sweden struggled to beat Korea in their morning game on Monday, being forced all the way to an extra end by the three-man Korean team before winning by 7–6.

Their evening win by 9–4 over Norway was more convincing, but their skip Niklas Edin was the first to acknowledge, “That whole game [against Korea] was really close and they played really well to be honest. We really struggled to keep up with them but I think we handled it well in the second half.”

Following their two successive defeats on Sunday, Canada had a bounce-back day on Monday, beating Poland by 9–2 in the morning, before producing an 8–3 victory over Japan in their evening game.

Against Poland, the game was tied at 2–2 when, in the fifth end, Canada’s skip Matt Dunstone played a draw into the house to score two points and take a 4–2 lead going into the break.

Canada then went on to win by 9–2 by stealing three in the sixth, then a further two in the sevent before Poland conceded.

Team Canada © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

After this win, a reflective Dunstone conceded, “It’s been a tough couple of days for us, so we had to bounce back, and we did. Coming off two pretty bad losses, it was time for us to look inwards and do a little bit of soul-searching. If we play well, we’ve got a chance of winning every single game here.”

And as if to prove that statement, Canada then came out to beat Japan.

This game was tied at 3–3 in the seventh end when Dunstone played a run-back take-out to score a game-changing four points and take a 7–3 lead. After this, Canada went on to win by 8–3, and they now sit in joint third place on the rankings table.

Team Scotland © World Curling / Sarah Boeke

They share third spot with Scotland, who beat Italy by 9–3 in their only game on Monday.

In the fourth end of this game, the Scots were already ahead by 3–2, when their skip Ross Whyte navigated his final stone between two front guards to play a take-out on an Italian stone to score five points and take an 8-2 lead.

Afterwards, Whyte said, “We are delighted considering how we started. It felt like it was a long, long shot from there, but to get to four and two right now, it feels great and we’ve put ourselves right in the mix.”

Amos Mosaner © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

After this game, Italy bounced back to beat Korea by 9–4. Italy’s skip Stefano Spiller spoke after this game, saying, “We are improving in every game. I’m getting used to it all and we’re making quite a lot of shots out there.”

Czechia’s Martin Jurik celebrates their win © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Of the teams that only had one game on Monday, Czechia beat Poland by 10–6 when Polish skip Konrad Stych had an unfortunate miss with his last draw attempt.

Meanwhile, United States beat Japan by 9–2, helped by a masterful in-off for four points in the fifth end by their skip John Shuster.

Unfortunate Norway now sit alone at the bottom of the table. They replaced skip Andreas Haarstad with fifth player Magnus Ransjfell in both games on Monday, but still managed to lose by 7–6 to Germany and 9–4 to Sweden, as they look for an elusive first win.