MONCTON, N.B. April 8, 2009 — Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud returned to his winning ways on Wednesday at the 2009 Ford world men’s curling championship at the Moncton Coliseum.
Ulsrud and his Oslo foursome (Torger Nergård, Christoffer Svae, Håvard Vad Petersson, alternate Thomas Løvold, coach Ole Ingvaldsen) drilled France’s Thomas Dufour 10-4 in Draw 12 play on Wednesday morning to improve to 6-2 and ease some of the pain from a two-loss Tuesday.
“Yesterday was just terrible for us,” said Ulsrud. “Losing to Canada is OK, but the game against Switzerland really hurt. So we were pumped up for today and played a good game.”
The Norwegians opened with a steal of three, gave up one in the second and put four on the board in the third end en route to the victory, which left France with a 4-4 record.
Team Canada’s Kevin Martin, meanwhile, moved to within a victory of locking up first place in the 12-team round-robin and a berth in the Page playoff one vs. two game by hammering Kalle Kiiskinen of Finland 12-4.
Canada scored four in the first end, three in the third and four more in the fifth to improve to 8-0, while Finland dropped to 1-7.
Japan’s Yusuke Morozumi picked up his third win in eight games in impressive fashion. The Japanese stole two in the first end and another point in the second in a 9-3 pounding of Jiri Snitil of the Czech Republic. The Czechs dropped to 2-6 with the loss.
Also, China’s Fengchun Wang eked out a 7-6 extra-end triumph over Denmark’s Andy Kapp for a third consecutive victory. China’s last-rock thrower Rui Liu made a last-rock double-takeout, eschewing an open draw to the four-foot, for the victory, which improved China’s record to 3-5. Denmark evened out at 4-4.
John Shuster of the United States (4-3), Andy Kapp of Germany (4-3), David Murdoch of Scotland (4-3) and Ralph Stoeckli of Switzerland (3-4) all had byes in Draw 12.
Play at the Ford worlds continues on Wednesday with draws scheduled for 3 p.m. and 7:30 (all times Atlantic); TSN will show the Canadian game at 3 p.m. against the U.S., while curltv.com also will have live coverage of both draws.
The top four teams following the conclusion of round-robin play on Thursday night will make the Page playoffs. The first- and second-place teams will play Friday at 7:30 p.m. or Saturday at 10 a.m., depending on potential tiebreakers, with the winner going into Sunday’s 7:30 p.m. championship game on TSN.
The third- and fourth-place teams will play Friday or Saturday for a berth in Saturday’s 4 p.m. semifinal on TSN against the loser of the Page one-two game.