GRAND FORKS – Canada's Kevin Martin muscled his way into a share of first place with a clinical 9-3 win over Australia at the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship.

Martin's men opened with a deuce and never looked back, building a 4-2 lead before exploding for five unanswered points in ends six and seven.

Australia's Hugh Millikin could only marvel at the show.

"In the first end, we wanted to be conservative," said Millikin, whose won/loss record dropped to 1-2. "So we played a hit to lie three.

"John (Morris, Canada's third) makes the triple and rolls behind the guard. And boom, we're done for a two.

"They don't make mistakes. They're really strong. And I don't know how to beat them."

Canada and Germany sit atop the standings at 3-0, while Jiri Snitil of the Czech Republic lost his first game, 8-4 to Norway's Thomas Ulsrud. The Czechs, France's Thomas Dufour and Craig Brown of the United States are all at 2-1.

Brown stole an eye-popping victory over 2006 world champion David Murdoch of Scotland. Murdoch faced two U.S. counters on his final shot of the game – a comfortable draw to the full eight-foot rings – but the stones seemed to fudge, and stopped short in the 12-foot circle. The Americans, who were down 6-5 at the time, won 7-6.

In the other Sunday evening match, Denmark's Johnny Frederiksen defeated Sweden's Anders Kraupp 9-5. Both teams are at 1-2 along with Scotland, Australia, Norway and China. Switzerland's Claudio Pescia is 0-3.

Numerous television groups are delivering live and tape-delayed action, plus highlight packages, to world curling fans. Eurosport, CBC/Bold/CBCSports.ca (Canada), NBCOlympics.com and WCSN (United States) and CurlTV are all on site in Grand Forks.

Live results, with linescores and shooting percentages, are available via: worldmenscurling2008.com with mirrored scores also posted at: results.worldcurling.org