GRAND FORKS – Switzerland won their second game in a row at the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship, but is it too little, too late for the playoffs?

"The momentum is changing," declared skip Claudio Pescia, with a smile.

There wasn't much smiling during the first four draws at Ralph Engelstad arena. The Swiss tumbled to 0-4 out of the gate and just strung their first and second wins together, the latter an 8-7 win over Jiri Snitil's Czech Republic.

It's a far cry from the Swiss championship, when Pescia hauled 1998 Olympic champion skip Patrick Huerlimann out of retirement and convinced him to step in and play third. The squad clicked immediately, and went undefeated to book their tickets for Grand Forks.

"When Patrick jumped in, it was not only playing skills that helped," said Pescia. "He gave me more confidence than the other guy on our team before, he really made me a better skip. This was the way at the Swiss championships and it should have been the way here."

The Swiss lost close games in their previous outings which, in some ways, can be more difficult to swallow than blowout losses.

"We've just been, how do you say, the edge of the wrong end?" asked Pescia. "Wrong side of the inch? OK, that's it.

"With Patrick as a new player, it's not the same as when you play five years in a row together. That's me with the other two guys, and now it's all new for this lineup."

In other matches, Scotland's David Murdoch took out China's Fengchun Wang 8-2, Norway's Thomas Ulsrud drew the button to defeat Germany's Andy Kapp 7-6, and France's Thomas Dufour made a tricky draw to the edge of the four-foot to beat the United States and skip Craig Brown by a 6-5 count.

In Tuesday night action, Canada's Kevin Martin meets Germany, Switzerland battles Denmark, China takes on Sweden and  France challenges Australia.

Numerous television groups are delivering live and tape-delayed action, plus highlight packages, to world curling fans. Eurosport, CBC/CBCSports.ca/Bold (Canada), NBCOlympics.com and WCSN (United States) and CurlTV are all on site in Grand Forks.

Live results, with linescores and shooting percentages, are available via: worldmenscurling2008.com with mirrored scores also posted at: results.worldcurling.org