Mixed bag for Eve Muirhead’s Scotland team

Eve Muirhead’s Scotland team had mixed fortunes yesterday at the World Women’s Curling Championship in Sapporo, Japan – they lost their morning game 7-5 to China but bounced back in the evening, with a 8-3 win over Finland.

Eve Muirhead's Scotland team lie joint fourth in Japan. Picture: Getty

China scored first, taking two points from the first end and stealing another one in the second. But in the third, Muirhead hit out a Chinese stone to level at 3-3. However, with the last stone of the game in the tenth end, China’s skip Sijia Liu hit one Scottish stone and nudged another to score one point in the end and win the game by 7-5.

In the evening game, Scotland took a 7-3 lead when the Finns gave up a single steal. The Scots built up the ninth end well, and Sanna Puustinen was facing three Scottish counters spread across the house when she played her last stone. She could only remove two of them, giving Scotland a single steal to win. Muirhead said: “We got off to a strong start and that’s what we wanted to do after our disappointing loss this morning.”

The Scots now share fourth place with four other teams and face one of them – Germany – this evening. Before that, they play third-placed Russia.