VERNON – Switzerland scored two huge Wednesday wins to serve notice at the 2008 Ford World Women's Curling Championship.

Mirjam Ott's squad from Davos became the first team to defeat China's Bingyu Wang, courtesy of a massive five points tallied in the eighth end of play. Wang, leading 5-4 at the time, missed her last shot of the end and Ott had a simple takeout for the five.

China grabbed a deuce in the ninth but it was too little, too late, as they failed to get into the four-foot rings in the 10th end. Switzerland won 9-7.

"Every win is great, it makes me happy," said Ott.

"Everything can happen, that's life," said Wang, who plays Italy's Diana Gaspari in Wednesday's night draw.

"I think we played not so bad, the eighth end was only bad, that's all." 

Switzerland climbed to 7-2 while China sits at 7-1. Canada defeated Scotland 8-6 to move to 8-1, while Denmark's Angelina Jensen is at 6-2 and Debbie McCormick of the United States is 5-3.

In other Wednesday afternoon matches, Russia's Liudmila Privivkova defeated Germany's Andrea Schoepp 8-6 and Sweden defeated the Czech Republic 7-3. The Germans dropped to 4-5 with just two games remaining in the round robin, while Russia improved to 3-5. Sweden moved up to 4-4 while the Czechs are winless at 0-9.

In other night action Russia meets Denmark, Scotland takes on Japan and Sweden meets the United States.

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 on site in Vernon, with live results also available via curling.ca and results.worldcurling.org

CCA photos by Michael Burns