Team Canada continues to beat teams right behind them in the standings, as they defeated China 8-2 in the Thursday morning draw at the BKT World Men's Curling Championship at the Temple Garden Centre.
The win improves Canada's record to 8-1, while China, which has been chasing Canada for first place, drops to 6-3.
"I think our last few opponents have either had the same number of losses as us, or maybe one less, and we’re knocking them down and staying ahead of them. That’s definitely the goal. That’s really important. So, being 8-1 right now, I don’t know what that guarantees us. Hopefully something would be nice," said Jacobs.
Canada faced a Chinese team that struggled, with China curling 80 per cent and making some key misses. Meanwhile, Canada, as a team, curled 90 per cent, with skip Brad Jacobs curling 84 per cent.
Jacobs said before the game that they had a team meeting and decided second Brett Gallant and third Marc Kennedy would be guinea pigs for the ice conditions. They might miss some shots to learn how the ice behaves for skip stones. Gallant talked about those conditions.
"The rocks are a little sharp right now, and there’s been a touch of frost the last couple of games, so sometimes it’s not as predictable as it was early in the week. It’s nice that there’s enough curl so you can make all the shots now. It’s just sometimes it’s not autopilot when deciding where to put the broom and judging the speed of the ice," he said.
Canada opened the game by taking advantage of a couple of mistakes by the Chinese team to score two points with the hammer.
A missed light takeout by Chinese second Zhiyu Wang in the first end opened the door for Canada early. However, Gallant came up light while trying to lay two. Chinese third Xueqing Fei wrecked on a centre-line guard, giving Canada another chance to lay two. Kennedy, with his first, got around a corner guard to put Canada in a good position. With the last rock of the end, Jacobs had an open hit and scored his two points.
The Canadians again forced more errors from China. In the second end, Wang ticked a guard on a takeout, giving Canada an opportunity to steal. Fei made a double takeout on two Canadian stones around the button to get out of trouble. Jacobs tried to remove a frozen Chinese stone with his last but left China lying one. However, Chinese skip Xiaoming Xu came up short on his draw and only scored one.
In the third, with a mess in the house, Jacobs cleared the Chinese rocks around the button to lay four. Xu pulled off a triple takeout, leaving Jacobs a draw for two and a 4-1 lead.
With his last rock in the fourth end and no pathway to the button, China could only manage to get one and trail by two.
Jacobs missed a double takeout with his first rock that would have set up a blank end, forcing him to draw for one to hold a 5-2 lead at the fifth-end break.
Canada was left with an open takeout with Jacobs' last rock to lay three without the hammer in the sixth. Xu had an open hit that he rolled out, resulting in a steal of two for Canada.
In the seventh, Xu was left with a takeout to score a single but rolled too far, giving Canada another steal of one and it was handshakes to make the final score 8-2.
It’ll be another big challenge for Canada as they take on 7-2 Switzerland in the evening draw tonight at 7 p.m.
In other action:
Sweden handed Scotland a third loss, scoring four with the hammer in the third end and stealing two in the fourth en route to a 10-4 win.
Switzerland scored two with the hammer to start the game, then stole two in the second end and three in the third to cruise to an 8-3 win over Italy.
Norway scored four in the third end and held on for a 10-5 win over Korea.