England’s Karen Aspey and Stewart Pimblett enjoyed an excellent second day at the SD Biosensor World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Championships (11-14 March) in Korea today with victories in both their matches taking them into play-off contention.
Opening up against Switzerland in the Gangneung Curling Centre, they twice moved ahead in the first half of the match only to be pegged back, before conceding a steal on the resumption which saw them fall behind for the first time.
They responded well with a two at the sixth end to reclaim the lead and while a perfectly judged draw by skip Melanie Villars got the Swiss out of trouble and saw them level the scores once again after seven ends, Aspey and Pimblett dominated the final end in running out 6-5 winners without having to deliver their final stone. 
“There was a lot of soul-searching last night, but we’re pleased with how today went,” Pimblett said of their excellent response to a heavy loss to Italy in their opening match the previous day.
“We felt like we played really well against Switzerland and while we had to fight for some of the ends, we had control most of the way through.
“Karen was over the moon with her first ‘W’ at the Worlds and we’ve got a bit of momentum.”
While Aspey is making her World Championship debut at this event, her more experienced partner offered her substantial credit for the way they then held things together when Finland put them under pressure in their second match of the day.
“We started off like a rocket before we had a bit of a blip in the third and fourth ends, before we came strong again and we did get a little bit lucky if I’m honest,” said Pimblett.
“Karen had to give me a bit of a telling off at some points to keep my chin up because, I was throwing a few zeros and then finding a great one, but she pulled off some brilliant shots.”
They now face the USA and Canada on the third day of competition which will be crucial to their chances of reaching the quarter-finals.
“Tomorrow North America awaits us and you never know where we can go,” said Pimblett.
“We’re quite hopeful and we do honestly feel we’ve got a couple more gears in us if we can find them.”
There was also an improved performance by the Scottish pairing of Charlotte McKenna and Gary Smith, but they were unable to convert that into a win, going down 6-3 to Latvia.
“Today felt a lot better than yesterday when we were a bit nervous and the first half of today’s game we did well and controlled things to some extent,” said Smith.
“Latvia got the upper hand against us In the second half, so it got away from us a wee bit and we tried to chase it too hard at times, which probably affected our weight control.
“Saying that, we didn’t feel as if we were out of it at any point, so we really need to set the standard of the way we started that match as our minimum going forward and we need to look to improve on that each game and even end by end.”
Smith and McKenna face Poland and Estonia in their first two match day of the Champs tomorrow.
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England Mixed Doubles Team
Stewart Pimblett
Karen Aspey
Team Coach Tony Lenton
Assistant Coach Rosemary Lenton
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team
Charlotte McKenna
Gary Smith
Team Coach Niall Ryder
Team Leader David Leith
Schedule
Monday 11 March
Scotland – Slovakia 3-11
England – Italy 3-12
Tuesday 12 March
England – Switzerland 6-5
Scotland – Latvia 3-6
England – Finland 8-3
Wednesday 13 March
Scotland – Poland
England – USA
Scotland – Estonia
England – Canada
Thursday 14 March
Scotland – Turkiye
England – Slovakia
Scotland – Norway
Friday 15 March
Quarter Finals
Semi Finals
Saturday 16 March
Final
Image: WCF
