Curling: Wins give Scots teams strong hand

With two more wins at the World Junior Curling Championships in Sochi yesterday, the Scottish men’s team have qualified for the weekend play-offs before their final round-robin game today against the USA.

And the Scottish women kept their unbeaten run going with a 7-2 victory over Switzerland to guarantee themselves top place in the rankings and keep the defence of their title on track.In their morning game, Kyle Smith’s team beat Sweden 6-5 in a tight encounter that went all the way to a Scottish steal of one in the tenth end. They followed up with a 5-4 defeat of the Czech Republic, who have concluded their programme in Russia without a win, and the Scots sit top of the table with seven wins.

Reflecting on qualification, Smith said: “That’s definitely where we want to be by the end of the week. One more win tomorrow and we’ll be exactly where we want to be.”

The women, skipped by Lockerbie’s Hannah Fleming, took control against Switzerland and built a 7-1 lead before the Swiss scored a consolation single point in the seventh end and conceded. Afterwards, Fleming said: “We got on top of them at the start and continued like that throughout. It doesn’t matter who we play in the play-offs, we just concentrate on our own game and that works.”