VIERUMAKI – Switzerland, Norway and Sweden are through to the playoffs and Canada has scraped its way into a tiebreaker at the 2008 World Mixed Doubles Championship.

With two of the three pools completed, Switzerland's Toni Mueller and Irene Schori are undefeated and the clear class of the field at 7-0. They have qualified for the semifinals along with Norway's Tormod Andreasson and Linn Githmark, who won their pool at 6-1, and  Sweden's Goran Carlsson and Marie Persson, who won their pool at 5-2 based on their top score in the Draw Shot Challenge. Also at 5-2 in that pool are Canada and Hungary, who will play a tiebreaker on Thursday to determine a berth in the qualification round.

Canada faced Japan in a must-win game Wednesday night, and the duo of Dean Ross and Susan O'Connor found themselves down 6-1 after Japan took five in the second end. The Canadians switched their throwing order, putting O'Connor in the first and fifth throwing position, and the Canadians went on a six-point scoring rampage to take a 7-6 into the eighth end.

Japan's Michiko Taira made a stellar come-around tap, scoring the tying point and just missing another winning counter. In the extra-end, the Canadians packed the house and took a five-ender for the 12-7 win.

"Susan played great, I struggled again," said Ross.

"We finally switched it up, and why not, when you can switch it and then just change it back again? There's no commitment to stick to it." 

"I was really happy with all my first rocks, but not at all happy with my last ones," said O'Connor.

"But we'll take it. We just needed a change, a bit of a shift in momentum."

Canada lost to Hungary 6-4 earlier on Wednesday.

Finland is the first team to confirm a berth in the qualifying round, which consists of all the second-place pool teams battling for the fourth and final semifinal spot. Canada and Hungary will clash for a spot, while Thursday morning's final round-robin draw will decide that pool's tiebreaker or qualifier squads.

The Finnish Curling Association is posting live results online of both Championships. The World Mixed Doubles results are available at: curling.fi/en/competitions/leagues/2688 and the World Seniors can be viewed at: curling.fi/en/competitions/leagues/2687

In addition, results are mirrored on the World Curling Federation website at: results.worldcurling.org

The host websites for the Championships are: wmdcc2008.com (World Mixed Doubles) and: www.wscc2008.com (World Seniors).