Two strong wins by Eve Muirhead’s Scottish women yesterday have put them into tomorrow’s world curling championship play-offs in Beijing and kept alive their medal hopes.
Their final ranking of at least fourth has secured a place for a Great Britain team in the line-up for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Korea. The Scots’ first game yesterday was against Germany and, with the last stone of the ninth end, Muirhead hit out a German stone for three shots to win by 7-2.
Later the Scots faced the Czech Republic, with both teams still in with a chance of grabbing fourth place and making the play-offs.
It was the Scots who scored the first blow, taking a single shot from the first end. The Czechs levelled with one in the second end and then, after blanking the third, the Scots scored a two in the fourth end for a 3-1 lead. This could have been a three but Muirhead came up short with her final draw.
The Czech skip Anna Kubeskovadrew nicely in the fifth end to score two and level the score at 5-5. In the sixth end, Muirhead just feathered a Czech stone on the way in with her final stone but the Scots still scored one point to take a 4-3 lead – only after an umpire’s measure.
In the seventh end, Kubeskova played another well-judged draw right on to the button to score two points and take the lead at 5-4.
The teams swapped good final draws for one point each in the eighth and ninth ends and eventually, Muirhead took out a Czech stone at the back of the house with her own final effort of the 10th end to score the two points that gave her team a 7-6 win. The Scots now face Sweden.
Russia beat China 6-4, putting them on the page 1-2 game for the first time against Canada.
Muirhead said: “We were patient, which was key.
“The ice was tricky – the trickiest it’s been – but we adapted to it pretty quickly.
“Our first goal was to make the play-offs and we’ve ticked that box. Our next goal is to make the semi-finals and onwards from there.”
The Scots have a day off today and Muirhead said: “A rest won’t do us any harm.”