Curling: Team Muirhead off to winning start at World Women's Curling Championship
- Published
Eve Muirhead is aiming to guide Team GB to next year's Winter Olympics
Scotland continued their fine start to the World Women's Curling Championship with a 7-6 defeat of Germany.
Eve Muirhead's rink sit joint top of the round robin with Switzerland's reigning champions, Olympic champions Sweden and the Russians.
After beating United States 10-6 and Japan 10-5, the Scots faced a German team still with only three players because of Covid-19 protocols.
"Take your hat off to Team Germany," Muirhead said.
"Obviously, after the two girls getting Covid, for them to accept the challenge and come here and compete as a three-player team is impressive under the circumstances. It can't be easy for them."
On Sunday, Scotland face China, who have one win in two matches so far, at 16:00 BST, ahead of a meeting (21:00) with a Korean side who have lost all three of theirs.
Against Germany, Scotland opened up a 5-2 lead, but their depleted opponents battled all the way and it took until the final end for the team of Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds and Lauren Gray to claim the win.
"We had good control and just a few slack shots in the sixth end obviously highlighted with my last one, giving up a steal of two, put us on the back foot a little bit from there," former world champion Muirhead said.
"However, we then had a really solid last few ends and were pretty textbook again, blanking the seventh end, scoring at the eighth and forcing her at the ninth before a good last end to score."
Silvana Tirinzoni's Swiss rink won the world title in 2019, beating Anna Hasselborg's Olympic champions from Sweden, and remain reigning champions after last year's event was cancelled.
The nations that finish in the top six of the 14-team round-robin stage progress to the play-offs as well as earning qualification for next year's Winter Olympics in Beijing.