GRAND FORKS – Scotland and the host United States both scored key wins at the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

Scotland's David Murdoch won a cautious match 6-4 over Australia's Hugh Millikin to move into a three-way tie for second place with France and Norway at 5-3. Norway's Thomas Ulsrud beat Denmark's Johnny Frederiksen 7-3 to keep pace.

Craig Brown of the United States drew the four-foot against two opposition stones to defeat Sweden's Anders Kraupp 8-6. The Americans climbed back to the .500 plateau at 4-4, tied with China's Fengchun Wang and Germany's Andy Kapp.

"We finally played a good game," said Brown, of nearby Bemidji, Minnesota.

"We've played some good ends, but this whole game was good. We could have won this game by a couple more points, but (Kraupp) made a lot of saves." 

Canada's Kevin Martin pounded the Czech Republic's Jiri Snitil 6-1 in just six ends to stay atop the leaderboard at 8-1. Australia's Hugh Millikin is in third place at 5-4.

Denmark is at 4-5 while the Czech Republic, Sweden and Switzerland's Claudio Pescia all have just two wins.

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