VERNON, B.C. -- China's Bingyu Wang hammered Sweden's Stina Viktorsson 11-5 here at the Greater Vernon Multiplex Saturday afternoon as the 2008 Ford World Womens Curling Championship got underway with a bang.
China busted open a tight 5-5 game with a three-ender in the eighth end and then a steal of three more in the ninth end, prompting Sweden to concede the loss.
Wang was delighted afterward about what was one of the biggest victories ever in the short history of the Chinese curling program.
"It's good, very good," Wang said afterward. "Not a bad day today."
It was the opposite for Viktorsson, the 2005 world junior runner-up who was making her women's world debut here Saturday after stunning 2006 Olympic gold medallist Anette Norberg in the Swedish playdowns.
In other games on Saturday's opening draw, Scotland's Gail Munro staged a dramatic comeback, outscoring Russia's Liudmila Privivkova 5-1 in the game's final four ends to squeak out an 8-7 victory.
Munro was asked afterward if anything caught her by surprise. "Of course there was a surprise," she said. "There was that four in the middle that wasn't supposed to happen."
Russia scored four in the sixth end to jump out of a 6-3 lead.
In the only other games, Japan scored two in the final end to nip Italy 9-8 and Denmark's Angelina Jensen, last year's worlds runner-up, edged 2003 world champion Debbie McCormick of USA by a score of 8-7.
The Ford Worlds resumes this evening when Canada's Jennifer Jones debuts against Switzerland, Italy plays Denmark, Germany plays the Czech Republic and Japan plays USA.
-30- | 
