Germany makes it through

EDMONTON – Germany’s Andy Kapp (top in red, along with brother Uli and Sweden’s James Dryburgh) outscored Sweden’s Peja Lindholm 8-4 in a tiebreaker to claim fourth place and advance to the playoffs of the 2007 Ford World Men’s Curling Championship.

The Germans scored three deuces while limiting to Swedes to singles throughout the match. The killer blow was a soft tap for two in the eighth end that put Germany up 7-4.

“We’re in the same spot we should have been in last night,” said Kapp, a four-time world medallist in 10 appearances. “We always take the long road. In every German Bundesliga we play three games a day, so we are used to it.

“It’s a new game tonight (against Switzerland), so we’ll see.”

Meanwhile, Todd Birr of the USA stuck to his game plan of avoiding all fancy-shmancy duelling with Canada’s Glenn Howard at the start of the Page 1/2 game. At least, for the first two ends... here in the third, there’s just a mess of granite in the house. Later...