European Curling Championships: Scotland women beaten by Swiss, men lose to Italy

Rebecca Morrison's rink took bronze in the last European Championships

Scotland women's hopes of making the European Curling Championship medal matches are in the balance after defeat to Switzerland in Aberdeen.

A third loss in seven outings leaves Rebecca Morrison's rink fifth in the standings, with Estonia and Norway their remaining opponents.

The top four progress to Thursday evening's semi-finals.

Silvana Tirinzoni's Swiss side were always in control in a 5-2 win, leaving them with a 100% record.

Italy have booked their place in the last four along with Switzerland after beating Norway 7-6 in their sixth success of the tournament.

Sweden are the next best team with five wins.

Bruce Mouat's rink have four wins and two defeats so far in Aberdeen

Meanwhile, defending men's champions Scotland suffered their second defeat of the week against in-form Italy.

Bruce Mouat's rink led 6-5 going into the final end but Italian skip Joel Retornaz held his nerve to earn the two needed to maintain their 100% record.

Retornaz is currently number one in the rankings and appears to pose the biggest threat to Mouat's hopes of a fourth European title in four attempts.

With four wins and two defeats, the Scots are locked in a share of second place in the standings with Switzerland and Sweden.

"Italy are on a really good streak of form right now and we know what we're going to have to do to beat them if we do end up playing them again," said Mouat.

"We're throwing it quite well and working well together, though, so we're excited to see what we can do in the rest of the round-robin and hopefully that leads into the play-offs for us."

Scotland will be strong favourites in Wednesday's matches against Netherlands (live via BBC Sport at 0900 GMT) and Turkey.

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