Six in a row for Muirhead as rink books its place

Eve Muirhead’s rink are through to the latter stages of the Scottish Curling Championships at Dewars Centre, Perth, after notching up a sixth straight win yesterday.

The Pitlochry ace guided her team to an 11-9 victory over Hazel Smith’s rink, with the latter also qualifying after finishing second in the standings with four wins from six.

Hannah Fleming’s rink also qualified after winning a tie-break against Karina Aitken’s team.

Perth curler Kyle Smith qualified for the knock-out stages of the men’s competition despite losing his ninth round-robin match against Bruce Mouat’s side by 9-7.

Kyle is joined in the last few days by teams skipped by David Murdoch and Tom Brewster after all three sides finished with seven wins from nine matches.

Bruce Mouat is also through after beating Grant Hardie 5-4 on a tiebreaker.

Meanwhile at the World Junior Championships in Gangneung, Korea, Scotland’s Cameron Bryce grabbed a place in today’s play-offs after a dramatic extra-end 9-8 win over Canada.

Having sat out their last session and finishing the round-robin at the top of the women’s rankings, Sophie Jackson’s women were already in the Page Play-offs.

Behind table-topping Korea, USA, Scotland, Canada and Norway all finished with the same record, winning six from nine.

Korea face USA in the top Play-off game while Scotland will be up against the winner of a tie-breaker between Canada and Norway this afternoon.

Scottish women will face Sweden in their Play-off game today.