The first matches of the seniors.
Mixed doubles had a long layoff before this afternoon's match against Turkey, but the Czech women ran into their toughest opponent, the Scots, early this morning. Led by world champion Jackie Lockhardt, they fielded a solid team against ours, controlling the game and despite the Czech women's best efforts and a number of good stones, they soon raced to victory. The first loss may not be so disappointing for Slávka's team as they were really playing against the favourites. The men were up against the erratic Belgians, who have Canadians (Melanie and Sebastian Robillard's father) and Swiss in their squad. However, concentrated pressure managed to force the Belgians into mistakes and after seven ends it was over. The first scalp is fine. The women now take on the Australians, shortly afterwards the Czech mixed doubles pair will challenge Turkey and the day will be rounded off with a Czech-men versus Denmark duel (Ulrik Schmidt). The weather is ok, so is the housing, so is the food, and we achieved a great success today when we managed to divert the normal bus route so that we were half an hour early at the hotel!!! Even the Japanese applauded us.