---

Czech Republic - Korea.

this is what the scoreboard looks like before the game starts. The match, played at 2pm local time, brought together the successful Asian Olympians and our ambitious team, looking for their first win at this World Cup. We were down 1-3 after the fifth end and our very decently played last stone before the break promised some points in the second half. After a blank in the sixth we managed to capitalise on the pressure in the seventh end and scored four points after a nicely constructed run. In the eighth we pummelled our opponents into one, but a lapse came in the ninth. We let the Koreans play a few easy draws and we ourselves always missed the right shot by a whisker. The situation was so dire that in the end we were left with a small space to correct our opponent's four, and unfortunately we overshot that space by a few decimeters. We tried again in the tenth end to play for three at the extra end, We were not quite far away, but still far enough to get to the extra end. Sorry to lose. Although we had respect, we played to win and managed to put our opponent in a tight spot. The Koreans were perfect on the draw, had great communication and it was obvious they have made tremendous progress over the last five years. We're going to China tonight, not China.