Tie-breakers (Round One): Sweden Defeats France 6-5;Germany Defeats Finland 8-5

I watched the tie-breaker between France and Sweden on CurlTV today (with snatches of shots shown from the other tie-breaker between Germany and Finland). Skip Lindholm of Sweden made two absolutely marvelous shots in the 10th end to score two for Sweden. His first shot was a very difficult in-off take-out to get around all the guards and move France's shot rock off the button. And then, after France raised one of their guards to be sitting shot, Lindholm removed it and stuck his shooter to score two for the win.

Once again, Markku Uusipaavalniemi curled a lower percentage than any of the four skips and missed a difficult shot (it looked like a double-raise takeout) with his last rock, allowing Germany to score two in the tenth end. Although, as I had suggested, he improved considerably during the tournament, he just didn't seem as polished as he was last year.

The two teams, Germany and Sweden, meet at 4pm EDT in the second round of tie-breakers, which will also be shown on CurlTV.