Team Canada suffered its first loss on Wednesday, but still tops the leaderboard at the world men's curling championship in Grand Forks, N.D.

Kevin Martin's Edmonton rink was upset 6-5 in an extra end by China's Fengchun Wang in morning play, but righted the ship quickly with a 6-1, six-end pounding of Jiri Snitil of the Czech Republic in the afternoon.

Canada's Kevin Martin directs traffic in a 6-1 win over the Czech Republic.
(Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

"It was a small hiccup," Canadian second Marc Kennedy said of the loss to Wang. "We might have lost focus in the second half of the game, and that happens once in a while.

"We came back strong. Sometimes, a loss like that can help you get back on track.

"Kevin had a little fire in his eye this game to get us going. It just might help us."

"We wanted to finish the day off strong," Martin said. "It was important to get back out there and play well.

"For the first four ends, we made a conscious effort to play with a lot of finesse. After four ends, we wanted to switch it around and let everyone play some hits — it was enjoyable."

With the split, Canada clinched first place with an 8-1 record through 14 draws at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

Norway's Thomas Ulsrud and David Murdoch closed out Wednesday with identical wins and identical records.

Ulsrud defeated Johnny Frederiksen 6-4 and Murdoch dumped Claudio Pescia of Switzerland 6-4, as both contenders kept pace with Canada at 6-3.

Wang whipped Snitil 7-3, and Craig Brown of the United States prevailed 8-5 over Germany's Andy Kapp to create a four-way tie for third place between the U.S., China, Australia's Hugh Millikin and Thomas Dufour of France.

All four rinks stand 4-5.  

CBC Sports is televising the semifinal (Saturday, 2 p.m. ET) and the championship final (Sunday, 2:30 p.m. ET), and providing daily streaming at CBCSports.ca.

With files from the Canadian Press