The Chinese men's team booked their appearance in the final with a nail-biter of a 4-3 win over Matt Dunstone's Canadian squad at the Curling World Cup in Beijing on Saturday.

It was a low-scoring game during the first two ends, which were marked by a succession of takeouts that left the house empty.

Canada drew first blood with a double in the third. Braeden Moskowy threw a hit-and-roll that forced the Chinese side to respond with a takeout at the button that left them exposed to Moskowy's second throw. The double-takeout needed from vice-skip Ba Dexin proved too hard a task. China got one Canadian stone out of the house but Dunstone threw a draw right into the button with ease to seal the first two points of the game.

At the start of the fourth end, lead Xu Jintao threw two front guards that left the Canadians just a bit too much space. While the Canadians were indeed able to get through with several draws at the button, a successful Ba Dexin hit-and-roll gave China its first crucial point in this highly defensive match-up.

Canada responded with a single of their own in the 5th end, but a double by China in the sixth set up a 3-3 tie that was anyone's game to lose.

With Canadians on the hammer in the 8th, Dunstone was unable to make the necessary promotion takeout to stop China from scoring a crucial point, delighting the crowd on their home ice and setting up a final against another Canadian squad skipped by Kevin Koe.

Ba said that the Chinese squad will draw lessons from the game.

"We managed to cut the deficit and seize our chance to win. We will analyze today's games; we won but we had mistakes, we need to make adjustments in the final. We feel we are much stronger physically and psychologically," Ba said.

China's captain Zou Qiang, for his part, added that his team would use the final as a learning experience. "We will not think too much about the results in final. We will try to be students; the final will be a great lesson." 

Earlier in the morning session, China's men had overcome a slow start to log a decisive 6-3 win over John Shuster's 2018 Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. squad. In the first two ends, China were throwing their guards a bit deep, and the Americans weren't leaving them enough space to get their draws in.

Things began to turn around for China just before the fourth end break. With China on the hammer, Schuster took out a crucial draw, but Chinese vice skipper Ba Dexin was able to respond with a beautiful throw to just outside the button to level the score at 2-2 at halftime.

From then on, momentum slid decisively to the side playing on home ice, with the Chinese men setting up impossible draws that the Americans were unable to put away.

"The U.S. team are Olympic winners. We just played our way, and I would say that we won by deploying patience. We did well in the second half. We got a good experience from this event. We feel well [with how we did]," said Zou.