PYEONGCHANG, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China gained an easy victory over Finland in the round robin session of mixed doubles curling at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics here Saturday.
China's Wang Rui/Ba Dexin opened the match with a 3-0 lead, but the Finnish capitalized on a mistake China made in the second end to level the score.
The two sides gained one more point each in the next two ends, but the fifth end saw the Finnish make a series of mistakes and gave China four easy points.
The Finnish retrieved one point in the sixth end, only to see China seal the match early 10-5 after the seventh.
"I think we gave them quite an easy game today," said 49-year-old Finnish player Tomi Rantamaeki.
"We were quite the underdogs at first, and we didn' t get the speed right, so they had a quite easy task to steal three points from us. And later after the break in the fifth end, we struggled again in that direction, as you can see they got quite as many points," he said.
"In the fifth end, I don' t remember the order, but we were too slow, we were too narrow, then we were too narrow, then we were too wide , and then too narrow, five missed shots, no wonder they got the points," he explained
But he added that it doesn't mean Chinese players were not good. "They played well, they used the situation well, and they got the points," he said.
Chinese player Wang Rui said that she was happy for the win, but "since we still have a match tomorrow, we should make preparations to face the challenges."
China will play Norway on Sunday, which will be a key game for China to make the semifinals.
In the evening's other matches, Canada beat Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) 8-2, Switzerland edged South Korea 6-4, and United States trounced Norway 10-3.
Now Canada is leading with five wins and one loss, followed by Norway, OAR and Switzerland on 4-2. China has three wins and three losses, South Korea and the United States both have two wins and four losses, while Finland has lost all six matches.
Eight teams are competing in the newly introduced Olympic event with the top four finishers in the preliminaries qualifying for the semifinals.
