The New Zealand women's curling team caused a major upset by beating China 8-6 in the third game of the best-of-five semifinal at the Pacific Curling Championships in Karuizawa, Japan, yesterday.
However, it was not able to repeat the effort in the next game and was beaten by China 10-3.
China won the semifinal play-off three games to one.
To win a game against the world champion was a big turnaround for skip Bridget Becker and her team-mates Brydie Donald, Marisa Jones and Natalie Campbell.
China had won the two round robin games 9-3 and 8-5 and lost only one of its eight round robin games.
Japan narrowly beat China 7-5.
The New Zealand women had won only two of their eight games and were given little chance of forcing the Chinese into a fourth game.
China won both of the qualifying round matches between the sides, which counted as the first two games of the semifinal.
New Zealand started behind scratch and had to win three games against China to advance to the gold medal finals against Japan.
Japan beat Korea 8-6 in the first semifinal to advance to the final with a 3-0 lead.
It won its two round-robin games 7-5 and 9-3.
In the men's competition, Korea won the last sudden-death qualifier against Dan Mustapic's team to push New Zealand out of semifinal contention.
A triple on the sixth end took the Koreans out to a 5-1 lead, and they controlled the match to win 7-3.
China remained unbeaten when it beat Australia 8-5 in the first semifinal to take a 3-0 lead to advance to the final.
China will play Japan in the men's final after beating Korea 8-4 in the other semifinal to take a 3-0 lead.
The semifinal winners will play off in the Pacific Championship final later today.
