European Curling Championships: Scotland men fall short of semi-finals

Scotland's men beat Italy but lost to Russia on Wednesday at Braehead Arena

Scotland's men missed out on a place in the semi-finals of the European Curling Championships after losing to Russia.

Tom Brewster's rink needed to win their final round-robin match but succumbed 8-6, with the Russians picking up two in the 10th end.

A fifth defeat in nine left the Scots sixth in the overall standings.

Scotland's women beat Czech Republic to clinch their place in the last four and continued their 100% record in Glasgow with a win over Denmark.

Eve Muirhead's in-form rink saw off the Czechs 10-5 and eased to a 7-3 success against the Danes.

Earlier in the day, Brewster's team beat Italy 6-4 to keep hopes of progress alive and secure a place for Scotland at next year's World Championship in Canada.

But that was of little consolation as the skip lamented a tough loss to Russia.

"Just gutted; we had the win," he told BBC Scotland. "I felt we were probably the better team out there. We played pretty solid. One shot here or there and we maybe could have got a wee bit away from them.

"We had the game, we had the win. I felt like I threw it [the final stone] the same as the one directly before, it just went heavy. Maybe we just took slightly less ice, maybe just a faster track, I don't know."

The Scots were the only team to beat defending champions Sweden, who top the standings, but suffered damaging losses to Finland and Germany on Tuesday.

"We've missed opportunities all week," added Brewster. "We've only got ourselves to blame in some of the other games where we hadn't performed as well.

"But we can take a lot from this and figure out a way of turning tight games into wins. I've missed a couple of last stone draws for various reasons."

Muirhead's Scots are the only unbeaten rink in the competition

Looking ahead to Thursday's final group game with Russia, who have also secured a place in the last four, Muirhead told BBC Scotland: "I'm really delighted with that out there. It's at this part of the week that we need to keep moving forward and build momentum.

"It's important that we don't slack off one bit and we keep fighting really hard to keep the Ws coming. It's important that we come out strong against Russia."

Men's Round Robin, Division A

Standings: Sweden (8-1) Q, Norway, Switzerland, Russia Q (6-3), Germany, Scotland (4-5) Italy, Finland, Austria (3-6), Denmark (2-7)

Women's Round Robin, Division A

Standings: Scotland (8-0) Q, Sweden (7-1) Q, Russia (6-2) Q, Czech Republic (5-3), Denmark, Germany (4-4), Switzerland (3-5), Finland, Italy, Norway (1-8)