With a dramatic last-stone draw by skip Eve Muirhead, Scotland's women kept their medal hopes alive at the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships in Champery, Switzerland.
That was enough to earn them a 7-6 win over Sweden yesterday, in the second-last round-robin game for the Scots, who started poorly when Muirhead wrecked her last draw in the second end to give Sweden a steal of one to open the scoring.
Muirhead then levelled the score with a nose-hit in the third end and the Scots moved ahead with a single steal in the fourth. Sweden's Anna Hasselborg then drew for two points in the fifth end for 3-2.
Scotland scored two in the sixth to reclaim the lead and the teams then swapped singles in the next two ends to go into the ninth end with Scotland 5-4 up. Sweden came back with a score of two in the ninth end and a tense 10th end came down to Muirhead delivering a well-swept draw inside the four-foot ring to join another Scottish stone already there for the second point, which gave the Scots their win.
Afterwards, the Sochi Olympics bronze medal-winning skip said: "What a win! We knew we needed it and I'm so pleased with that. We've really upped our game against the big teams and this is the part of the week where you really need to do that. Hopefully we can keep building and get better and better."
The Scottish women now face Finland in this morning's final round-robin game, with the winner going on to the medal play-offs and the loser eliminated.
There was heartbreak for the Scottish men as David Edwards' rink were narrowly beaten again, this time 10-11 by Sweden, to put paid to their medal hopes and end a disappointing tournament.
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