Eve Muirhead's Scottish rink demonstrated why they are the reigning world champions with a 12-2 victory over Italy in just six ends at the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships here in Stavanger yesterday, while David Murdoch's men produced their best performance of the week so far as they defeated the Czech Republic 9-5.
In outclassing Italy, Muirhead's team also qualified Scotland for this season's Ford World Women's Championship in Canada.
For the third successive game, they opened with a big score, as Muirhead drew her last stone of the first end into the house to score 5. The Scots followed that up with a steal of 2 in the second.
Eventually, when their skip, Veronica Zappone, scored just a single in the sixth end, the Italians immediately offered handshakes.
After the game, a relaxed Muirhead addressed the issue of how to cope with being so far ahead in a game, saying: "We have to make sure we keep making the simple shots. You can't get complacent, it's just making sure you nail the simple shots."
In this session, Switzerland also won, beating the Czech Republic 9-3, and this keeps the Swiss and the Scots tied at the top of the table, both undefeated so far.
Earlier, the Scottish men produced a slick performance against the Czech Republic to record their fourth win of the week by 9-5. With last stone advantage, and with previously sick skip Jiri Snitil restored to their line-up, the Czechs scored a single in the first end, but David Murdoch's men took an early lead, scoring 2 in the second. The Scots then scored a single steal in the fifth end for a 6-2 lead. The Czechs had a revival in the sixth end, scoring 2, but the Scots carved out another two shots in the seventh when Murdoch's final draw was well swept into position. The teams swopped singles in the eighth and ninth ends before the Czechs conceded defeat with the score at 9-5 to Scotland.
Murdoch celebrated the team's -and his own - return to form, saying: "I thought that was a really commanding performance. Right through the team, lead through skip, we just dominated every position and forced a lot of pressure. That's the kind of game we were needing."
On the men's rankings, Norway and Denmark remain undefeated, while Scotland share third spot with Switzerland, two wins behind them.
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