2018–19 Curling World Cup – First Leg
The First Leg of the 2018–19 Curling World Cup took place from September 12 to 16, 2018 at the Suzhou Olympic Sports Center in Suzhou, China.
Canada had a clean sweep, winning all three disciplines. Rachel Homan's team beat out the Swedish Anna Hasselborg rink in the women's final, team Kevin Koe defeated Norway's Steffen Walstad in the men's event, and Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres beat out Sarah Anderson and Korey Dropkin from the United States for mixed doubles gold.
Format
Curling World Cup matches have eight ends, rather than the standard ten ends. Ties after eight ends will be decided by a shoot-out, with each team throwing a stone and the one closest to the button winning. A win in eight or fewer ends will earn a team 3 points, a shoot-out win 2 points, a shoot-out less 1 point, and 0 points for a loss in eight or fewer ends.Each event will have eight teams in the men's, women's, and mixed doubles tournament. The teams will be split into two groups of four, based on the Curling World Cup rankings, whereby the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th, ranked teams will be in one group and the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th ranked teams in the other. The first place teams in each group will play against each other in the final. In the event of a tie for first place, a shoot-out will be used, with the same format used to decide matches tied after eight ends.
Qualification
For the first three legs of the Curling World Cup, the eight spots in the tournament are allocated to each of the hosting member associations, the highest ranked member association in each zone, and two teams chosen by the World Curling Federation. Member associations may choose to send the same teams to all three legs or have different teams.The following countries qualified for each discipline:
| Qualification method | Women | Men | Mixed doubles |
| Hosting member association | |||
| Hosting member association | |||
| Hosting member association | |||
| Highest ranked member association in the Americas zone | |||
| Highest ranked member association in the European zone | |||
| Highest ranked member association in the Pacific-Asia zone | |||
| Selected by World Curling Federation | |||
| Selected by World Curling Federation |