[ritchiebaby]

Once again, there's plenty to report at these Championships.

Firstly on the curling front, Scotland fell away to a 4-7 defeat against Sweden, despite being 3-1 up after 5 ends. And, once again, Scotland lost 3 shots to leave too much to do in the latter stages. The players seemed to play better than they did against Korea, but they didn't get away with any slack play against the current Olympic champions.

On the Covid front, the broadcasting team positive cases has now risen to 7, so no official TV pictures until at least Wednesday night. The "in play" pictures on the WCF FB page seem to be taken on a mobile phone from the side stands by an official. Much better than nothing at all, but not nearly as good as being behind the direction of the stone.

Added to that, a spammer is trying to post a link on the FB page suggesting "live stream" broadcast footage. WCF are taking these links down as they appear.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland got back to winning ways tonight by beating Italy 9-6 with Scotland holding the advantage all the way through. They were still inclined to get themselves into bother occasionally and will need to strengthen their build-up play and gain extra consistency to keep their position. Currently they have had 2 defeats, with RCF and Switzerland still unbeaten.

Tomorrow sees Scotland play Czech Republic at 9pm and Canada at 2am on Wednesday morning. Thankfully Canada have not proved to be as strong as their Mens' team, but Czech Republic could be deceptively dangerous. Scotland have to be on their mettle with 3 top teams left to play later in the week. Every win could be vital with the top 6 qualifying for both this tournament's final stages and the Beijing Olympics.

[ritchiebaby]

In a day of contrasting fortunes and some slack play yet again, Scotland had one win and one defeat.

As predicted, Czech Republic fought all the way and limited Scotland to a 6-5 win, with Eve Muirhead saving the day with a last-stone draw to win for the Scots. After being in control of the scoreboard all game, Scotland allowed the Czech skip an easy shot to score 3 shots in the ninth end to tie the game going into the last end. To give a further indication of how fragile the Scots can be, the fourth end saw the Czechs lie 5 shots with only one stone to play. Thankfully Eve Muirhead played a perfect tap-back to gain a single shot.

Perhaps thanks to my dismissive comments yesterday, Canada have now struck a rich vein of form, winning their last 3 games. Scotland once again controlled the scoreboard for most of the game, but still got into a guddle with front stones to lose 3 shots once again, this time in the eighth end. Thankfully, they got themselves back into the game with two single shots to take it to an extra end. Unlike the Scots, the Canadians kept the path to the rings open by clearing away everything lying at the front, leaving an easy last stone win.

Scotland have just started their game against Switzerland and will play Estonia at 2am tomorrow morning. They then play RCF at 2am on Friday morning with Denmark their opponents at 4pm. The postponed game against China will now take place on Saturday morning and will possibly be make-or-break for the Scots. I would say we need 3 wins from these 5 games to be safe. 2 wins and we would be at the mercy of other results.

BBC Scotland trumpeted that the Scots were on their way to qualification in 5th place, but the truth is we are in a precarious position. Undefeated RCF lead the way with 9 wins, followed by Switzerland on 7 wins, Sweden and US on 6 wins, then Scotland and Canada on 5 wins. Canada are perhaps in a false position, as they have played 10 games with the other teams around them having only played 8. This includes China and Denmark on 4 wins.

[ritchiebaby]

And yet again the number 3 plays a big part in Scotland's fortunes. Not content with losing the usual one score of 3, Scotland managed to lose two scores of 3 against Switzerland, losing 6-10 in the process. It's certainly frustrating for me, so it must be far worse for the players. Switzerland are certainly the form team with each of their individual players comfortably top of the scoring charts. It didn't turn out too bad as United States were beaten as well, by Sweden, so Scotland are still within striking distance of a rival. RCF suffered their first defeat against Czech Republic (with 3 shots in the last end).

In their next game, the Scots managed to beat bottom-of-the-table Estonia by 8-5 and still lost a score of 3 shots. Fortunately it was in the 3rd end, leaving plenty of time to recover.

Due to the earlier postponed games, the table looks a bit skew-whiff, but the RCF have definitely qualified for the final stages with 9 wins after 10 games. Switzerland (9 games) have 8 wins, Sweden (9 games) have 7 wins, as have US after 11 games. Scotland come next with 6 wins from 10 games, followed by Denmark with 5 wins from 9 games. Canada and Germany also have 5 wins, but from 10 games. China and Korea are on the fringes with 4 wins, but could reach 7 wins before the end.

[ritchiebaby]

As expected Scotland faced a daunting task against RCF, eventually losing 8-9. Also as expected the Scots lost yet another 3, although to be fair they scored one of their own later. Too many vital shots are being missed, leading to a situation where Eve Muirhead had to draw into the centre to lie at least second shot with 4 shots against her. She only failed by a few inches, but was really on to a hiding to nothing, as success would have left Alina Kovaleva a simple clear-out to claim victory.

The result meant that Scotland now share 5th place with Denmark, who have come on to a strong finish, both with 6 wins and 5 losses. Switzerland and RCF lead with 10 wins, followed by Sweden who have 8 wins. These are the 3 definite qualifiers so far and leading the race for another one is United States on 7 wins. Behind Scotland are Canada and Korea on 6 wins and 6 losses and then China and Germany on 5 wins and 6 losses. Even Japan on only 4 wins and 7 losses can squeeze themselves into contention with wins in their final 2 games. That makes 8 teams (only 7 realistically) are involved in the race for the remaining 3 places. Definitely squeaky bum time coming up at 4pm for the Scots, then again at 2am tomorrow morning.

According to the WCF, the TV broadcasting schedule will return this afternoon at 4pm. Eurosport isn't mentioned by name, but I can only assume their schedule will go ahead as planned.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland were full of their usual errors against Denmark and paid the price by losing 5-9 in an important game. It was no great surprise when Scotland lost 3 shots in the 2nd end to put themselves under pressure against an in-form team. To their credit they fought back to be 5-6 down with 3 ends to go, but lost 2 successive ends, leading to their concession. In truth the Scots left too many Danish stones in scoring positions for far too long, so farting against thunder (as it were) when it came down to the final stones.

"We're absolutely gutted," said Eve Muirhead. "The bottom line is that the Danish girls just played better than us. We gave them chances, they took chances and made the shots and unfortunately we didn't. We managed to claw our way back in, getting our twos, but we just didn't manage to convert properly when it really mattered."

This result leaves Denmark as the 4th qualifier behind RCF, Switzerland and Sweden. Canada and the US are in 5th and 6th places with 7 wins, but have completed their games. Germany, Korea and Scotland share 7th place on 6 wins with one game each still to play and any one of them could still qualify depending on other results.

In the current session, Korea are playing Czech Republic and Germany are playing Switzerland. A win for Korea or Germany will further complicate matters, but no matter how these games finish, Scotland must win against China to be able to dislodge Canada or the US. No messing now, girls, just do it - other brands are available.

[ritchiebaby]

There's definitely a feeling of deja vu about my recent posts on the Scottish team's performances. In a nutshell, Scotland lost 6-7 to China after, guess what, losing 3 shots in the 8th end. It's all so familiar, except that this time Sophie Sinclair played at 2nd, instead of Jennifer Dodds, a change that perhaps should have been made earlier in the week. No matter, the Scots performances overall have been below expectations and they didn't deserve to go through.

Scotland's loss meant that they finished with 6 wins and 7 losses. Korea won and Germany lost, but that didn't matter in the end, as even with a Scotland win, the Scots still wouldn't have qualified, because of their defeats against Canada and Korea.

The final table shows Switzerland with 12 wins, RCF with 11, Sweden with 10, Denmark with 8, US and Canada with 7 wins. Korea also finished with 7 wins but lost out because of their losses to both US and Canada. Scotland finished 8th with 6 wins, just ahead of Germany and China, also on 6 wins.

To put the Scottish performances into perspective, Switzerland's lowest team percentage was 84 in 3 of their games. Scotland only exceeded that in 3 games (85, 85 and 86). Some teams can get away with that rating, but only if they play the big shots really well, which Scotland couldn't do. Just not good enough, I'm afraid.

Switzerland move into the first semi-final at 10pm tonight and await the winners of Denmark v US (at 4pm this afternoon). RCF are in the second semi-final at 2.30am tomorrow and await the winners of Canada v Sweden (at 4pm this afternoon). The Bronze Medal match will be played at 3.30pm with the Gold/Silver Medal match at 8pm, both tomorrow. These 6 teams have all qualified directly for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022,

Eurosport 2 have all these games on their live schedule.

[Lord Snooty]

So do we not have a GB team at the Olympics? Or is there another chance to qualify?

[ritchiebaby]

Thankfully there is still a chance to get to the Olympics, Snooty. A Qualification Event will be held in December to complete the line-up. I can only assume it will be the same team, but there's no definite information.

[ritchiebaby]

In the Play-off Games, Sweden comfortably beat Canada 8-3 and United States beat Denmark 8-7 with a perfect last-stone draw.

The first Semi-final between Switzerland and United States is taking place as I type, but will not finish until well after midnight, so I will watch it tomorrow morning. RCF will play Sweden at 2.30am in the second Semi-final.