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Czech Republic - Japan.

The Czech Republic is playing against Japan. After two ends, the score is two-two and it looks like it will be a nice curling and at the same time a relentless fight. The Japanese have played with the advantage of a deuce and we counter with a deuce as well, after squeezing our stone between two guards and ejecting Japan's best up to that point. In the third end Martin complicated the situation in the rings by kicking our moving stone. After a discussion between the two teams, the Japanese agreed that if the incident had not occurred, the Japanese stone would have been ejected from the rings and removed from play themselves. A very helpful gesture. The middle game is such a tug of war after the ones, mostly "classic force" and more or less waiting for someone to make a bigger mistake. In the seventh, the opportunity came. After a blunder by Japan's Shimizu, who removed his own guard with an inaccurate hit, the opportunity to score with a four presented itself. However, Luke's angle raise was a little wider, and so the Japanese number one stayed at the centre of the rings. The match is entering its final phase. On the other lanes, the scores are also close. A short draw of the Japanese four offered the Czech team the opportunity to score with a deuce and with a precise stone it succeeded. A brief embarrassment at the mutually disapproved result of the endgame was erased by a Japanese wave of the hand. Eight ends later, it was level and in the ninth the opponent's forced one greatly increased the value of the Czech shares. Meanwhile, American Shuster misses the final runback to leave the win to the lucky Dutch, Retornaz hits a double to give the Italians the win and Muskatewitz hands the match to the Norwegians. The Czechs win 8 : 6 after some big errors by the Japanese in the last end. The second win is nice and motivates them to continue in the tournament.