Winter Olympics Vancouver 2010: David Murdoch up against it after being swept aside by the Swiss

Published on Thursday 18 February 2010 23:27

DISAPPOINTED British curling skip David Murdoch admits the world champion's remaining round robin games are all must-win following their 4-3 defeat to Switzerland at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.

Britain's medal hopes in the men's tournament were left hanging in the balance after they lost a tight game to the unbeaten Swiss team skipped by Markus Eggler, sending the quartet of skip Murdoch, Ewan MacDonald, Pete Smith and Euan Byers to a second defeat in three games at the start of the nine-game round-robin series.

Having lost their opening round robin game to European champions Sweden on Tuesday, the world champions had got back on track with a victory over France on Wednesday but the Swiss defeat means they cannot afford too many more losses if they are to reach the last four. "Another loss and we're on the back foot so it's win and win from now on," Murdoch said. "We can't really drop many more. That's two bad ones we've lost already."

Britain were set to play a Denmark team last night who lost their first two games but bounced back with the enthusiastic support of the majority of the 5,600 fans to beat the United States 7-6 in extra ends.

"I don't think we're doing anything wrong, sometimes you just don't get the breaks," Murdoch said. "We've got to take confidence in the fact we're playing well. We've just got to regroup and come out tonight and make sure we win. All we can do is try and win our games from now on."

Murdoch, who as skip delivers his team's last two stones in each end, was left to rue a hammer, or final stone, that failed to dislodge a Swiss stone from the button, the innermost circle of the house, or target area.

Murdoch had opened the scoring with a point in the first end but the Swiss went 2-1 up in the third end. The British replied with two points in the fourth and a defensive game continued before Switzerland nicked an equalising point in the eighth.

That returned the hammer to the all-Scottish team and their desire to retain it for the final end saw them pass up a point in the ninth end to take the game into the tenth with the scores still tied at 3-3. The Swiss had a stone in the button, the innermost circle, with Murdoch needing to take it out with the hammer. His effort crept narrowly wide and the Swiss had the winning point.

"It hasn't gone well, we should have wrapped that one up but it was a bit of a bad end in the tenth there," Murdoch said. "I made a perfect shot with my first one and I had the weight with the second one but it just never curled. A bit bizarre."