GRAND FORKS – Less than 24 hours after dodging a bullet versus Australia, Norway's Thomas Ulsrud packaged a near-flawless playoff victory over China at the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship.

The European Championship runner-up saw his team score a 91 in shooting percentage in beating Fengchun Wang's rookie outfit from Harbin 7-5. The Chinese, who fired a collective 78 per cent, had defeated Ulsrud the previous day and surprised all with a 7-4, third-place finish in the round robin. 

Ulsrud, who also finished 7-4 but who stole a stunning victory Thursday night to avoid certain tiebreakers, dropped a deuce in the first end but came right back with a three-count in the second. The Norwegians added deuces in the fourth and sixth ends and never looked back.

"We weren't happy with our performance last night," said Ulsrud.

"Today we went out and played the game we wanted to to play today."

Wang spoke through an interpreter after the game.

"This was the first time for us in a playoff at the world championships," said Wang. "We are eager to win the game... (but we are) a little bit nervous."

Norway moves on to Saturday's semi-final while China drops into Saturday night's bronze medal game, and will meet the semi-final loser. Friday night will see the Page 1 versus 2 playoff between Canada's Kevin Martin and Scotland's David Murdoch, in which the winner advances to Sunday's Championship final and the loser drops into the semi-final.

Numerous television groups are delivering live and tape-delayed action, plus highlight packages, to world curling fans. Eurosport, CBC/CBCSports.ca/Bold (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