Canada and Japan top LGT World Men’s table on day one

Canada skip Matt Dunstone made a confident debut wearing the maple leaf at the LGT World Men’s Championship, with two victories on the opening day of round robin play — following up an afternoon 5–2 win over Korea with an emphatic six-end 9–2 defeat of Italy — to sit alongside Japan at the top of the rankings.

In the game against Korea, the score was tied at 2–2 as the teams played the eighth end. Dunstone then played a nose-hit take-out, to score two points and move his team onto a 4–2 lead. A single point steal in the ninth end for Canada secured their 5–2 win.

Canada’s E.J. Harnden © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

The game against Italy featured a steal of one in the second, then successive steals of three in the third and fourth ends to give Canada a 7–0 lead. Italy got on the scoreboard with a tap-back for two in the fifth end by new skip Stefano Spiller, reducing the Canadian lead to 7–2. After another score of two by Dunstone in the sixth end with a raise take-out for a Canadian 9–2 lead, the Italians conceded.

After his win over Korea, Dunstone reflecting on finally making Canadian representation, saying, “It’s good to be here and definitely a pretty special moment. It feels great.” And speaking about the game itself, he added, “we had a nice patient start there, just solid and nothing flashy.”

By contrast to the good Canadian opening day, Scotland’s debutants, skipped by Ross Whyte, suffered two narrow defeats, losing to Sweden 6–5, before then going down 7–5 to Japan.

Team Scotland © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

In the game against Sweden, with the score tied at 3–3, Scotland skip Ross Whyte attempted a double-raise take-out in the fourth end, trying to score three points, but he got the angles wrong and instead gave Sweden a steal of one point and a 4–3 lead. This breakthrough for Sweden eventually proved crucial, as they went on to win by 6–5.

Sweden celebrate after opening win over Scotland © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Afterwards, Swedish skip Niklas Edin said, “We wanted to come out strong this time. We’ve said that if we can play 90%, we have a good chance of winning and I think we did something like that. I think we played really strongly, overall, a really strong first game.”

Scotland then faced Japan and this game was tied at 5–5 as the teams played the tenth and final end. In this end, Japan’s fourth player Riku Yanagisawa cleared out a Scottish stone, to score two points and continue his campaign with a 7–5 win that followed up their opening 6–4 victory over Norway, placing them alongside Canada at the top of the table.

Team Japan © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Czechia played China in the opening session. The Czechs held the lead early in the game and were ahead by 3–1 as the teams played the sixth end. But in that end China skip Fei Xueqing played a raise tap-back, to score a game-changing four points and move his team onto a 5–3 lead. After this, China held on to win by 8-7.

China’s Fei Xueqing © World Curling / Sarah Boeke

Following their win, Fei said, “We were very calm and patient there. Even when we were ahead by two points, we were still calm, and when they came back at us, we were still relaxed.”

This was the only game of the day for these two teams.

Germany and United States were two more teams who faced each other with only game on opening day.

The Germans started well when, after blanking the first end, they scored four points in the second with a take-out by skip Marc Muskatewitz. The Germans never lost control after that.

Team Germany © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

In the eighth end, with Germany leading by 7–5, their skip Marc Muskatewitz played a well-judged tap-back of an American stone to push it out through a gap at the back of the house, to score two points and improve his team’s lead to 9–5.

Germany went on to win by 10–5, finishing with a steal of one in the ninth when American skip John Shuster’s take-out attempt left a German stone still counting.

Speaking afterwards, Germany skip Muskatewitz said, “That was a really good game, we had a good start in the early ends. We put the pressure on, had really good team communication, and were pretty precise with placing the rocks.” He added, “the ice was really predictable and really nice to play on.”

In the evening’s second round-robin session, Poland made their first-ever appearance at this level, against Switzerland. By the ninth end, the game was tied at 9–9 when Swiss skip Philipp Hoesli played a take-out of a Polish stone to score two points and win by 11–9.