VERNON – Five nations are left in the hunt for the 2008 Ford World Women's Curling Championship.

Three teams finished tied for first place with 9-2 records: China, Canada and Switzerland. China's Bingyu Wang finished the round-robin with a 6-5 victory over Germany's Andrea Schoepp (4-7), Canada's Jennifer Jones ended Sweden's hopes with a 7-3 victory, and Switzerland's Mirjam Ott made quick work of Russia by a 9-4 count.

Since each team was 1-1 within the group in round-robin play, the pre-event Draw Shot Challenge results were used for playoff seeding purposes. China, ranked first, will play Canada (second) in the Page playoff "1 versus 2" match Friday evening, with the winner advancing to Sunday's final. Switzerland (third) meets the winner of Friday's morning's tiebreaker between Japan's Moe Meguro and Denmark's Angelina Jensen (both 7-4) in the Page playoff "3 versus 4" match Friday afternoon.

In the other matches, Scotland's three-player outfit, now skipped by Karen Addison, beat the Czech Republic 8-4 to finish 3-8. The Czechs, led by Katerina Urbanova, finished at the bottom of the table at 0-11.

Sweden's Stina Viktorsson finished 6-5 while Russia's Liudmila Privivkova finished 4-7.

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