China is to play a tiebreaker with Norway Sunday evening after crushing the same opponent 9-3 in the morning in the round robin session of curling mixed doubles at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.[Special coverage]
China' s Wang Rui/Ba Dexin opened the match with a 1-0 lead, but the Norwegians caught up and took the lead 2-1 after the next two ends.
A mistake in the last shot of the Norwegians in the fourth end helped China turn the tide 4-2.
After retrieving one more point in the fifth, the Norwegians again made a series of fatal mistakes, which handed China an early victory with five more easy points.
"China played really well. We managed to hang in there in the first couple of ends, then I needed to be perfect on my last stroke (in the third end), and unfortunately, it' s not there," said Norway Kristin Skaslien.
As for the fatal last end, she believed that their "tactics were a bit wrong." "We didn' t agree on the tactics," she said.
"Our opponents made a few mistakes today, and we managed to capitalize on them," said Chinese player Ba Dexin after the match.
But he added that he and his teammate just tried to do their own best as always and no matter what the opponents did.
China coach Marcel Rocque said that he was happy his team was playing better than in earlier games.
He admitted that with the tiebreaker coming, pressure does exist, but added that "pressure is always what we create in our mind, and it depends on how athletes approach it."
In the morning's other matches, Canada beat South Korea 7-3, Switzerland edged Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) 9-8, and Finland defeated United States 7-5.
Canada is now leading with six wins and one loss, followed by Switzerland on 5-2. OAR, having beaten China and Norway, also booked a spot in the semi-finals.
China and Norway, both with four wins and three losses, will play a tiebreaker for the last spot in the semi-finals in the evening.
