OSLO, April 25 (Xinhua) -- China's Fu Yiwei and Zou Dejia beat Group C underdogs Croatia 10-2 to wrap up their round-robin matches on Thursday, but a 5-2 record was not good enough to send them into the playoffs at the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Stavanger, Norway.
With Australia beating Italy 7-3 and the Czech Republic defeating Wales 15-2 in the same session, four teams from Group C tied on the same win-loss mark of 5-2.
On the basis of head-to-head results among these four, Australia ranked first and the Czech team took second to advance to the playoffs, which begin on Friday.
The Chinese duo, who had lost 10-8 to the Czech Republic and 9-7 to Italy, however, only finished fourth, trailing third-placed Italy.
Only the top two finishers from each of the six groups and the best four third-placed teams advance to the knockout stage, meaning China did not do enough to progress further in the tournament.
Australia and the Czech Republic will be joined in the playoffs by Sweden, Canada, Hungary, Switzerland, Estonia, Norway, England, Finland, Russia and the United States, all of whom qualified by virtue of finishing in the top two in their respective groups.
The final playoff places went to Japan, Scotland, Spain and New Zealand, who were the four best third-placed teams.
The 16 teams in the playoffs will all secure a place in next season's 20-team World Championships to be held in Kelowna, Canada.
