Eve Muirhead leads Scotland into European curling semis

An 8-4 win over the Czech Republic in Wednesday morning's seventh session of round-robin play gave Scotland's Eve Muirhead and her team a place in Friday's semi-finals at Le Gruyere European Curling Championships, here in St Gallen, Switzerland.

Scotland's curlers have qualified from their round robin group at the European Championships in Switzerland. Picture: John Devlin

Scotland were in joint second place when they faced the Czechs, and they opened strongly when Muirhead hit out a Czech stone in the first end to open the scoring with three points. The Scots then scored two shots in each of the third and eighth ends, and a single steal in the fourth which was enough to give them an 8-4 win.

They now go into the last four alongside unbeaten Sweden and hosts Switzerland.

Muirhead said: “Since we dropped the first game to Sweden we’ve built a lot of momentum. We played really well in this game, the girls are playing great. We’re in a good flow and we’re making a lot of good shots.”

The Scottish women conclude their round-robin programme with matches against the Swiss and Hungary.

The Scottish men are still in the medal hunt but, following their 9-4 loss to hosts Switzerland on Wednesday, they now must beat Germany in their last round-robin game on Thursday to guarantee a semi-final slot.

Switzerland had already qualified for the semis when they faced the Scots and, in the eighth end, with Switzerland in the lead, Scotland’s skip Kyle Smith drew into the house to score one point and reduce the Swiss lead to 6-3. But in the ninth end, Switzerland’s fourth player Benoit Schwarz hit out a Scottish stone to score three points for a 9-4 win.