Scotland open with victory at World Mixed Curling Championships
BySportsbeat
Published 14/10/2018 at 11:52 GMT
Scotland got their World Mixed Curling Championships title defence under way in perfect fashion with a convincing opening-day victory over Belarus.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
The Scots lifted the title last year and the rink of Robin Brydone, Rebecca Morrison, Ross Whyte and Leeanne McKenzie look in good shape to repeat the feat in Canada.
A 10-3 victory certainly represented the ideal start in Kelowna, taking four from the second end to open up a hefty advantage.
Three further points were added in the fourth and seventh ends with Belarus unable to hit back in group A, though Scotland skip Brydone knows the challenges only get tougher hereon.
"It was just good to get back on the ice. We played well and there's still room for improvement, but happy with how we played. We got a good one," he said.
"Being defending champions does add a slight bit of pressure, but we're quite happy, just coming to do a job.
"We played the team that was out here last year in the Scottish mixed and won, so we got quite a bit of confidence from that, but we're happy just to be out here representing Scotland again."
Scotland are one of four teams with one win to their name in the pool but it's Hong Kong who are making the early running, victories over England and Belarus helping them to top spot in group A.
Meanwhile hosts Canada and Denmark also have two victories under their belts, the former putting in confident performances to beat Austria 10-2 and Slovenia 9-2 in group D,
While a 9-1 victory over Brazil and narrow besting of Switzerland 5-4 has Denmark on the front foot as they look to progress from group B.
History was also made on the first day in Canada as Chinese Taipei secured their maiden win at the World Mixed Curling Championships, defeating Poland 5-2.
The team are making their debut at the event with Heidi Lin and Amanda Chou, who play vice and lead respectively, becoming the first female curlers for the country in over a decade.
"One of the main things we talk about as a team is to be comfortable playing here," said skip Randolph Shen
"It's a little bit out of our environment, so we want to make sure we are comfortable and that we're enjoying ourselves."
"If you miss, you remind each other that you tried, and refocus on being super positive. We don't want to beat ourselves up too much."
Sportsbeat 2018
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement