World Men’s Curling Championship 2017: Switzerland and Sweden win on Day Three

Edmonton: Wins for Switzerland and Sweden during Monday’s (3 April) sixth session of round-robin play puts those teams into second place in the Ford World Men’s Curling Championship 2017 rankings, behind undefeated Canada.

Canada top-the-table, and are the only undefeated team left in the event, thanks to wins over Switzerland (7-5), Russia (11-3) and Sweden (8-6).

Behind them, also on three wins, but having each played one game more, sit Switzerland – who have beaten USA by 7-4, Norway by 6-3, and Germany by 7-4 – and Sweden – who have had victories over China by 10-7, Germany by 8-2, and Norway by 8-6.

Japan have also only played three games so far, and their two wins, one loss record places them in a clear fourth place.

Behind these four table-toppers, five more teams – each on two wins and two losses – share fifth place. These teams are China, Italy, Norway, Scotland and USA.

Germany sit in tenth on just one victory, by 6-5 over Netherlands, while both Netherlands and Russia are still looking for their first win so far.

Statements of Winning Captains- World Men’s Curling Championship 2017

John Shuster; skip, USA (after 8-6 win over Italy): “We won the hammer again. The last two times we gave up steals in the first end but this time, being able to score two, we set the tone. That was pretty big for us. Anytime you win, it feels good. We know that we can’t afford to lose too many more so it’s going to be a grind all week.”

Rui Liu; skip, China (after 9-7 win over Scotland): “This was a game that was difficult for us, but we keep going. [In the tenth end] we tried the shot that was easiest for the team.”

Peter De Cruz; skip, Switzerland (after 7-4 win over Germany): “I think we are playing well enough to get to the play-offs, so that’s the goal. We were ahead from the start and we said we are going to keep playing offensive because we know against the top teams Sweden, Canada, Norway we are going to have to play an aggressive game.”

Oskar Eriksson; third, Sweden (after 8-6 win over Norway): “It felt like we played better this game. We had a bit of issues with figuring out the rocks, so we need to get our rocks in better places and make sure we understand the line and weight a bit quicker than we did in this game.”

Results after session six: Italy 6-8 USA; Scotland 7-9 China; Switzerland 7-4 Germany; Sweden 8-6 Norway

Results after session five: China 9-6 Russia; Canada 8-6 Sweden; Norway 8-3 Netherlands; Japan 4-7 Scotand

Results after session four: Germany 2-8 Sweden; Switzerland 6-3 Norway; USA 4-9 Scotland; China 3-8 Italy

Standings after session one: World Men’s Curling Championship 2017