Curlers in Euro wins

Both Scotland teams made winning starts at the 2011 Le Gruyère European Curling Championships in Moscow yesterday when Lockerbie’s David Murdoch beat Italy by 5-4 to follow-up Eve Muirhead’s 8-6 win over Norway in her opener.

Muirhead had to come from behind for her win, with a steal of three shots in the tenth end when her opposing Norwegian skip, Linn Githmark, was heavy with her final draw.

Next up for the Scottish women are Denmark, who lost their opening game by 6-9 to reigning champions Sweden.

Later, after a slip in the second end when they gave up two shots to Italy, Murdoch’s men were in control throughout in their opening game. Eventually, Murdoch hit one of two Italian counters out of the house with his last stone of the tenth end to record his win.

Murdoch said: “I’m always a slow starter at Championships so the fact we’ve got a win already is good. Italy are a good team and they’ll take some scalps this week. The standard is high and this is one of the toughest Europeans for a long time.”

The Scottish men have two games to play today, against Switzerland and then Germany

Murdoch added: “We just need to switch it on a bit more.

“We play aggressive curling and if we can put a bit of pressure on the others, we won’t be far away at the end of the week.”