Canada and Switzerland set the pace at men's World Championships

Switzerland also kept up the pressure with their fourth win of the tournament to join Sweden in joint second place in the standings.

There were also wins for Japan and Italy in the final session of day three in Edmonton, but it was the home team that shone brightest.

Opening with a three-stone haul the Canadians established a lead they never looked like surrendering, despite American skip John Shuster pulling one back in each of the second and third ends.

Another triple in the sixth end made the difference, though, and another single in the seventh meant the game was called with three ends still to play.

Switzerland's game with Russia was a similarly one-sided affair as skip Peter de Cruz led his rink to a 9-2 victory over their winless opponents.

"I think we've been playing better and better," he said. "There's just a couple of things we have to adjust but overall happy where we are at now and hope we can just fix a couple of little things.

"We are communicating well. I think we are playing a very good draw game, playing a really good aggressive game. Whenever we have the chance for a deuce we make it most of the time."

The Swiss side, with vice skip Benoit Schwarz delivering last of the quartet, took three stones in each of the first, third and fifth ends, meaning the game was prematurely brought to a close after the sixth end.

Japan's 7-4 victory over Germany came thanks to a triple in the ninth end, and Italy went one better with a quadruple in the ninth to bring an end to proceedings and seal a 13-6 win over the Netherlands.

Italian skip Joel Retornaz said: "I'm pretty happy. I don't want to be too happy because we won three games – we didn't achieve anything. It's better to be 3-2 instead of 2-3.

"It's a good start for our team, it gives us lots of confidence. It feels good. We are performing. We know that when we perform we can beat the teams out there.

"The fact we are performing makes me happy because at least we fight."

The overall standings make good reading for home fans with Canada atop the table on five wins from five, while Switzerland and Sweden are tied for second with four wins, while there is a four-way tie for fourth as China, Italy, Japan and Norway all have three wins and two losses. Scotland and the USA then have two wins, while Germany have picked up just the one and both the Netherlands and Russia are so far winless.

Sportsbeat 2017