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BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhua) -- With two wins over Sweden and Czech Republic, Canada continued its unbeaten run and became the first team to qualify for the play-offs at the World Women's Curling Championship here on Wednesday.
The afternoon session saw a top level clash between Canada and second-placed Sweden. Canada's skip Rachel Homan scored two crucial points in the eighth end and the Sochi Winter Olympics champions took a 6-3 lead before going on to win the match 6-4.
"That was a strong performance. It's always important to have the hammer, no matter who you're playing. We're focusing on one game at a time, not having any distraction and focusing on what we need to focus on," said Homan after the match against Sweden.
Canada met little resistance from Czech Republic as they claimed an easy 9-3 victory in the evening session. After nine matches of the round-robin phase, Canada is the only undefeated among the 12 teams.
Sweden remained second with seven wins after a hard-fought 6-5 victory over South Korea in the evening session. Russia beat Denmark and United States to rank third with six wins.
"I think that starting from now on, every win is really important. We just have to win every game to be sure to go to the top four," said Russia skip Anna Sidorova.
Host China were still looking for their form as they lost both matches of the day. The 2009 world champions only got two wins from nine matches.
In the morning session, Scotland took a 3-2 lead in the third end by scoring three points and they kept the advantage to beat China by 8-6.
China faced Italy in the afternoon session, but the Italians gained the dominance by taking three points in the fourth end, and eventually won the match 8-4.
Chinese skip Wang Bingyu admitted that she and teammates were under pressure on the home court. "All of us want to perform better, but the pressure is a bit high. Besides, we played four matches in a row, the stamina and focuses were not so good that we made several mistakes," she said.
The final two rounds of the round-robin section will be held on Thursday and the top four teams will enter the play-offs.
