Scottish men keep their hopes alive

WHILE the Scottish women’s team moved closer to the medal games at the Le Gruyère European Curling Championships in Moscow with a 7-4 win over Russia, the men’s team lost 5-2 to Denmark, giving themselves a tough task.

However, in their evening game against Latvia, they made amends with an 8-4 win to keep their qualification hopes alive.

After losing to the Danes, skip David Murdoch said: “That’s an in-form team and we knew it was going to be tough. We just didn’t get on the front foot.”

The Latvians then proved stubborn opponents, matching the Scots all the way until the eighth end, when Murdoch hit and stayed for three. The Latvian resolve then seemed to fade and they gave up a single steal in the ninth, and conceded at 8-4.

Murdoch said, “That was a big win in many ways – it keeps us in it and it pushes the bottom end of the field down.”

Eve Muirhead’s women produced possibly their best game so far to hold off the Russians and put the Scots, with only two losses, into third place behind Sweden and Denmark.

Muirhead said, “It was a pretty solid performance. We’re definitely on the way up.”