MONCTON, N.B. April 7, 2009 — Canada is cruising and the U.S. is picking up some momentum at the Ford world men’s curling championship at the Moncton Coliseum.
Canada’s Kevin Martin took over sole possession of first place with a Draw 9 victory on Tuesday morning, 8-3 over Switzerland’s Ralph Stoeckli, while John Shuster’s U.S. champs played their best game to date, drilling Yusuke Morozumi 9-1.
The U.S. improved to 4-2 with the victory, which came on the heels of a stunning win a night earlier when the Americans stole the winning point in an extra end to beat China’s Fengchun Wang.
“It was good to go out and win one we were supposed to win today,” said Shuster, whose Duluth Curling Club foursome includes third Jason Smith, second Jeff Isaacson and lead John Benton. “Going out and winning the hammer and scoring two points does a lot to calm your nerves and get everybody on the same page.
“It was fun to go out and get back to playing since the beginning of the year when we got on this run to get here. I don’t think it was really anything, other than we realized that we were close, and it took us five games at the (U.S. Olympic) Trials to find our swagger, and this was our sixth game here.”
Canada, meanwhile, improved to 6-0 despite Martin being in the rare position of not having last rock in the first end. Stoeckli won the draw-to-the-button, but gave up a steal of two in the first end, and Canada never looked back. The struggling Swiss dropped to 2-4 with the loss.
In other Draw 9 play, China’s Fengchun Wang finally hit the win column, posting a 9-7 upset of Scotland’s David Murdoch. China, 1-5, opened with a steal of three in the first end, and put the game away with a ninth-end deuce. Scotland dropped to 4-2 with the loss.
Also, France’s Thomas Dufour missed on a last-rock double-takeout to score a winning three, and wound up losing 7-5 to Germany’s Andy Kapp. The result left both teams with 3-3 records.
Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud (5-0), Denmark’s Ulrik Schmidt (2-3), Jiri Snitil of the Czech Republic (1-4) and Kalle Kiiskinen of Finland (1-4) also had byes in Draw 9.
Play continues on Tuesday with draws scheduled for 3 p.m. and 7:30 (all times Atlantic); TSN will show the Canadian game (7:30 against Norway), while curltv.com has coverage of both draws.