CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy - The Canadian duo of Sean Grassie and Allison Nimik remained unbeaten Tuesday at the world mixed doubles curling championship with a 10-3 rout of Bulgaria.
Grassie, of Winnipeg, and Nimik, of Calgary, jumped all over the Bulgarian pair of Lubomir Velinov and Borislava Petrova, scoring four points in the first end and another four in the third. A deuce in the fifth put the game away.
''We improved on all shots today, not just the ones we have to make,'' said Nimik. ''We played a lot better today.''
The win allowed Canada (5-0) to keep pace with Switzerland atop the overall standings. Canada sits alone atop the Red Group leaderboard, with Finland and New Zealand tied for second at 4-1 and Scotland next at 3-1.
Grassie and Nimik finish their round-robin with games Wednesday against England (1-5) and Thursday against Australia (1-4).
The defending-champion Swiss duo of Toni Mueller and Irene Schori edged Slovakia 7-5 to improve to 5-0 in the Blue Group.
''The teams are playing better, they are really good this year,'' said Schori. ''We're playing good but we can still improve.''
The top team in each of the Red, Blue and Green groups will advance to Friday's semifinals, where they will be joined by the winner of a tiebreaker between second-place teams. The bronze- and gold-medal games go Saturday.
