The 2015 winners had come into the third day with a 100 per cent record but the cracks began to show in their opening clash with Russia as they needed an extra end to claim a narrow 4-3 win.

The Swedes were not able to find their form in the evening either and the Americans took full advantage as Niklas Edin's team relinquished their joint lead at the summit of the round-robin leaderboard.

Canada, Olympic gold medallists at Sochi 2014, are the only unbeaten side left in the competition and Kevin Koe's team now sit proudly at the top of the standings with five wins from their opening five matches.

Their successes did not come easy on day three, however, as they were pushed all the way by Scotland in the afternoon session, eventually securing a 5-3 triumph to keep pace with the Swedes.

The Canadians then went on to thrash Japan, who picked up two victories yesterday, 9-2 in the evening to give them daylight ahead of the rest of their rivals. 

Norway, beaten by Sweden in last year's final, joined their Scandinavian neighbours on a four win and one loss record by comfortably seeing off Germany 8-2, before they defeated Denmark 8-6.

"I think that was all about us handling the ice better," Norwegian skip Thomas Ulsrud said after the success against the German side.

"There were some tricky spots but we managed them better than Germany.

"We got some good breaks early in the game and from then on we could play all the easy shots while he [skip Alexander Baumann] had to try the difficult shots."

Denmark, Japan and the US are the three nations currently vying for an all-important top four spot, with each team having claimed three wins and two losses so far.

Before Japan were hammered by Canada, they had kept up their impressive display at the tournament, edging Scotland 6-5.

The competition in Basel is due to continu tomorrow.