VERNON – Plotlines are beginning to twist and turn at the 2008 Ford World Women's Curling Championship.

Front-running Denmark suffered their first loss, 8-6 to Japan, and Switzerland won a wild 12-11 slugfest over Germany, in a match that featured five three-enders.

German veteran Andrea Schoepp managed a three in the 10th end to force an extra frame, and Swiss skip Mirjam Ott faced three German counters on her last rock of the game, and scored the win with a robust triple-takeout.

Even Debbie McCormick's United States entry, competing in its third straight World championship, was forced into tight contest by a stubborn Italian team. Skip Diana Gaspari had a shot to tie the game and force an extra-end, but missed, sending Italy down to a winless 0-3 record.

"We could have got five in the eight end," said U.S. third Alison Pottinger. "So that was one of those games where opportunities weren't being taken."

Pottinger acknowledged that upsets are more common in World play now than in the past.

"More now than ever," said Pottinger. "Six years ago that didn't happen, but the field has kind of closed in more now." 

Japanese skip Moe Meguro drew the button to move her team to 2-1, dropping Denmark's Angelina Jensen to the same record.

Meguro devised a strategy to break the lengthy 11-game round-robin into four chunks. The first three games, now completed,  represent one chunk, to be followed by two three-match pieces. A final two-game chunk concludes the round-robin.

"We have 12 teams, it's many (games) and long," said Meguro.

"So this is what I create. 2-1 at this pace through the week would be very good, so we are happy." 

In the other afternoon match, Canada made short work of the Czech Republic's rookie outfit, scoring six points in the fifth end for an inflated 11-4 victory. Canada and China are the only undefeated teams at 2-0.

In night action, Canada faces Germany, China meets Scotland, Russia battles Sweden and the Czech Republic challenges Switzerland. 

No less than seven broadcast partners are delivering live and tape-delayed action to world curling fans. Eurosport, NHK (Japan), TSN and CBC (Canada), WCSN and NBCOlympics.com (United States) and CurlTV are all onsite in Vernon, with live results also available via curling.ca and results.worldcurling.org