Murdoch gets tactics right at World Curling

Two-time Olympian Murdoch reached his first world final at the Canadian venue eight years ago and used his experience to full effect in a 7-5 win over Japan, a solid start ahead of Sunday clashes with Denmark and the reigning champion hosts.

"One of the things we talked about was that we really wanted to start with a solid couple of games. If you've got any hope of trying to get into that 1-2 game, you need to start well," said Murdoch, a world champion in 2005 and 2009.

"We've got that first win and it's a nice way to start."

Scotland's decision to rotate their five-strong rink has raised some eyebrows with Murdoch taking over as skip from third Tom Brewster, who claimed world silver in 2011 and 2012, and the team completed by a three-man front end of Greg Drummond, Michael Goodfellow and Scott Andrew.

"We know about the criticism but the rotation fires us up," adds Murdoch.

"We love being a five-man unit, everyone's playing well and whoever is coming on next is playing even better."

Swedish skip Niklas Edin leads the provisional early standings with two victories while there were also opening wins for Canada, Switzerland and the USA.

Canada - China 7 - 6

Sweden - Finland 7 - 6

Czech Republic - Norway 8 - 5

Switzerland - Russia 6 - 4

Scotland - Japan 7 - 5

China - Czech Republic 12 - 5

Russia - Sweden 5 - 6

Denmark - USA 3 - 8

1 Sweden 2-0

2 Canada 1-0

2 Scotland 1-0

2 Switzerland 1-0

2 USA 1-0

6 China 1-1

6 Czech Republic 1-1

8 Denmark 0-1

8 Finland 0-1

8 Japan 0-1

8 Norway 0-1

12 Russia 0-2