MOOSE JAW -- Anyone who knows about the kind of season Scotland’s Bruce Mouat put together this winter will be completely unsurprised to find out he’s currently unbeaten at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship.
After rolling to a 12-2 win over Austria’s Mathias Genner in their opening draw on Saturday evening, Mouat and his rink of third Grant Hardie, second Bobby Lammie and lead Hammy McMillan battled to a 9-6 win over Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi in the morning draw Sunday, to improve to 2-0 thus far.
That’s pretty much as expected for the 2023 World champion, especially with how things went on the spiel circuit in the lead-up to Moose Jaw -- Mouat isn’t just the top-ranked team in the tournament, he’s number one with a bullet, with more than a 100 point lead over Worlds number two Brad Jacobs of Canada.
“It’s been a great season for us, we’ve really enjoyed ourselves,” Mouat said shortly after his win over Japan. “We’ve played a lot of really good games, we’ve been really focussed on trying to get to number one in the world and the other goal we have is to win Worlds. We’ve put ourselves in a good spot here and throughout the season to get here, so I feel like we’re off to a good start to get to the medal games and hopefully win it.”
Yamaguchi didn’t make things easy in the slightest, though. Mouat put up four in the second end to lead 4-1, but Japan came right back with a four-spot of their own to lead 5-4 through three -- a less-than-ideal situation for the favourites, to say the least.
But, true to form, Mouat would regroup nicely. Two in the fourth followed by steals in the sixth, seventh and eighth ends made it a 9-5 game, and after Japan got one back in the ninth, Mouat would run Yamaguchi out of rocks in the 10th to secure the win.
“If there are missed shots at this level, you’re going to lose a big end and that’s what we did, so we’re just going to have to tighten up on every single shot,” Mouat said of the close start. “I missed two in the third end and we ended up giving up four, so it can be pretty rough if you don’t make shots.”
That said, getting a tough game from Japan isn’t a surprise in the slightest. They were tough in their 7-3 loss to Canada in the opening draw Saturday, and are one of many teams who might have been an easier touch in the past, but not any longer.
“Every game is going to be really tough and everyone is fighting for those Olympic points,” Mouat said. “It’s going to be a really exciting competition to see who qualifies and then whoever wins the Worlds is going into next season with a lot of confidence and that’s what you need in an Olympic year.”
Other results from Draw 3 saw China (Xiaoming Xu) score four in the eighth end to take an 8-2 victory over the United States, while Czechia (Lukas Klima) scored one in the 10th to defeat Germany (Marc Muskatewitz) 8-7 and Switzerland (Yannick Schwaller) put up three in the ninth for a 9-4 win over Austria (Mathias Genner).
Standings heading into Draw 4 on Sunday afternoon are as follows:
Canada (Jacobs) 2-0
China (Xu) 2-0
Czechia (Klima 2-0
Scotland (Mouat) 2-0
Switzerland (Schwaller) 2-0
Italy (Retornaz) 1-1
United States (Dropkin) 1-1
Norway (Ramsfjell) 0-1
Sweden (Edin) 0-1
Austria (Genner) 0-2
Germany (Muskatewitz) 0-2
Japan (Yamaguchi) 0-2
Korea (Kim) 0-2
Be sure to keep an eye on www.worldcurling.org for up to date scores and standings throughout the week.
