MONCTON, N.B. April 11, 2009 — It will be a Switzerland-Canada semifinal at the 2009 Ford world men's curling championship at the Moncton Coliseum.

Switzerland's Markus Eggler, the 1992 world men's champion, defeated Thomas Ulsrud of Norway 5-4 Saturday morning in the Page playoff three vs. four game to advance to the semifinal against Canada's Kevin Martin, at 3 p.m. (all times Eastern) on TSN.

Neither team scored more than a single point in the three-four game, and it was up to Switzerland's last-rock thrower Ralph Stöckli to score the last one, making a draw to the four-foot in the 11th end for the win.

But Stöckli said afterwards that despite posting a seventh straight win since he handed off shot-calling duties to Eggler, the Swiss effort against Norway was "not even close" to being good enough to beat Canada in the semifinal.

"They're still the same team, and they're very tough to beat; everybody knows that," said Stöckli, whose team is rounded out by third Jan Hauser, lead Simon Strübin, alternate Toni Müller and coach Russ Howard. "We didn't have four players playing good percentages (against Norway) and that's what we need this afternoon."

The winner of the semifinal advances to Sunday's 6:30 p.m. gold-medal game on TSN, while the loser will take on Norway in the bronze-medal game Sunday at noon.

"I hate losing that way," said Ulsrud. "But we have to regroup. For us, the bronze is a big deal; there's a big difference between fourth place and the bronze. That's the good thing about coming from Norway; people don't expect you to take gold. They're happy if you take a medal. So we have to try to reach that goal now."