MOOSE JAW -- And then there was one.
Canada’s Brad Jacobs became the lone one-loss team remaining in the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship draw without even being on the ice on Wednesday afternoon, thanks to Czechia’s Lukas Klima taking a 10-3 win over China’s Xiaoming Xu during Draw 13 at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw.
Klima, third Marek Cernovsky, second Martin Jurik and lead Lukas Klipa rolled to a 10-3 victory in nine ends to improve to 5-3 and move into the hunt for a playoff spot, while China fell to 6-2 and are tied for second place.
Things were even in the early going between Czechia and China, with Klima holding a 3-2 lead at the fifth-end break. Czechia would take control of things with a deuce in the sixth, and after holding Xu to one in the seventh, would take another two in eight and steal three in nine to finish things off.
China is tied with Scotland’s Bruce Mouat after the 2023 World champion took an 8-4 win over Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell to also improve to 6-2. Steals of one in the fourth and seventh ends gave Mouat a 5-3 lead heading into crunch time, and after Ramsfjell got within one with a single point in the ninth, a three-spot in 10 would secure Scotland’s victory.
Germany’s Marc Muskatwitz moved back to .500 thanks to an 8-4 win over reigning World champion Niklas Edin, with a three-ender in the eighth proving to be the difference in that game. Edin dropped to 5-3 and likely can’t afford more than another loss if he’s to have a shot at the playoffs.
Italy’s Joel Retornaz returned to the win column after a tough loss to Canada in the evening draw Tuesday with an 8-2 win over Austria’s Mathias Genner.
Standings after Draw 13 are as follows:
Canada (Jacobs) 6-1
China (Xu) 6-2
Scotland (Mouat) 6-2
Switzerland (Schwaller) 5-2
Czechia (Klima) 5-3
Sweden (Edin) 5-3
Germany (Muskatewitz) 4-4
Norway (Ramsfjell) 4-4
United States (Dropkin) 3-4
|Italy (Retornaz) 3-5
Japan (Yamaguchi) 3-5
Korea (Kim) 0-7
Austria (Genner) 0-8
The top six teams after the 11-game round robin advance to the playoffs beginning Saturday morning.
Canada is back in the ice on Wednesday evening for Draw 14 when they take on Czechia. You can follow along with all the action on SportsCage’s live blog and see all the up-to-date scores and standing at .
