PYEONGCHANG, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Olympic Athlete from Russia edged China 6-5 through an extra end here Friday afternoon to share the lead with Canada, Norway and Switzerland in the curling mixed doubles at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.
Aleksandr Krushelnitchii missed a chance to seal the victory for him and Anastasia Bryzgalova in the eighth end, but he recovered soon enough to finish an excellent take-out to take their third victory in four matches while Wang Rui and Ba Dexin of China slipped to a 1-3 win-loss record.
"In the 8th end, it was just a strong call. In the 9th, in the extra, all decisions were okay," said Bryzgalova through an interpreter. "On the timeout, I think we discussed and chose the right decision."
Bryzgalova attributed the hard-fought victory to their confidence.
"For sure, the Chinese team was one of the top in the world. We played two worlds against them, and one time we won, one time we lost. In this match, we felt much more confident. In the last championship, we were not so confident."
The 2016 world mixed doubles champions scored one point apiece in each of the first three ends, but Wang and Ba ran off three points in the fourth to level it at 3-all. Bryzgalova and Krushelnitchii improved to 5-3 after the sixth before China tied it again at 5-5 on back of a mistake of Krushelnitchii in his last shot in the eighth end.
"It's a pity that we lost, but I think we have done a good job," said Ba. "We will just try our best in the next games."
Despite the setback, China coach Marcel Rocque believed the Chinese duo still had a chance to make the semifinals.
"I'm just going to say that we will keep fighting to try to qualify, to see what happens," he said. "There are still three games, and people play against people, people are going to lose games. Half of them will qualify, so I know it's Olympics, but anytime you are going to find a way to win a world championship or big events, it really matters to be strong.
"If we can really get a couple of breaks go away, maybe get tiebreakers to play till the end, lots can happen still. I don't feel by any way out of this, so we will just try to gear up for tomorrow and try to turn around the tides a little bit."
In Friday afternoon's other action, Norway snapped a three-match winning streak of Switzerland with a 6-5 triumph as South Korea trounced the United States 9-1 and Canada beat Finland 8-2.
Canada, Norway, OAR and Switzerland all have three wins against one loss, followed by South Korea on 2-2. China and the United States have one victory apiece while Finland have yet to find a win after four rounds of the round robins.
Eight teams are competing in the PyeongChang Games curling mixed doubles with top four finishers from the round robins to qualify for the semifinals.
