SCOTS MAKE FINE WORLD CHAMPS START AGAINST WORLD NO.3 ITALIANS?

1ST APRIL 2023 SHARE?

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A nervelessly executed double take-out by skip Bruce Mouat secured a 7-4 victory for Scotland over an Italian team that has risen to third place in the world rankings this season to get their BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championship campaign off to an ideal start in Ottawa. Italy’s Team Retornaz started the match well after claiming the hammer by winning the pre-match draw shot challenge, blanking the opening end and, after they were forced at the second, making up for that by stealing at the third to move into a 2-0 lead.?

However, when Joel Retornaz made an error with his first stone at the fourth end, throwing an attempted draw through the house, Mouat seized upon the opportunity to set up a possible score of three with his first, then followed up with a perfectly judged takeout to edge his team ahead. That gave the Scottish quartet of Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan the initiative as they reached the midway break level at 3-3 after forcing the Italians at the fifth. However, they looked to be in danger of losing it when their skip made a rare error at the seventh end, where he miscued with his attempted takeout to blank the end, leaving his shooter in the house. Once again they responded well, though, stealing at the eighth end to move two ahead after leaving Retornaz with a testing draw against three counting Scottish stones and after they forced the Italians at the ninth, they controlled the final end sufficiently to leave Mouat that last stone opportunity to wrap things up. “It was a really high quality match and that’s exactly what you want to start a World Championship, against a really tough opposition,” said Mouat. “It obviously puts you in good stead to win that game and we’re feeling really happy about the way we performed. “There are still gears to go up, but we performed well, so it’s a nice start.” All the more so, because the Italians world ranking means they are also among the favourites to be involved come the play-off stages.?

“We think Italy will be one of the contenders at the end of the week, so it’s really good to have a winning record over them,” Mouat observed. “That could help us at the end of the week. We can’t be sure about that yet, but those are the kind of games you need to start winning.” The Scots now face a two game challenge on the second day, against Turkiye and then defending champions and world no. 1 ranked Sweden, led by Niklas Edin. “We’ve got two tough games tomorrow,” said Mouat. “With Turkiye you never really know what you’re going to get, but hopefully we can play well again and get a win, then we know Niklas at Championships very well, so we’ll see what we can do against Sweden in the evening.”