Euro joy for Muirhead and Smith

Perth’s Eve Muirhead and Kyle Smith each had 8-1 victories at the European Curling Championships in St Gallen, Switzerland yesterday as Smith recovered strongly from his opening defeat of the tournament, writes Lorin Mcdougall.

The former world junior champion won his opening three round- robin games convincingly, but German Alex Baumann halted his unbeaten run at breakfast time yesterday. Smith trailed 3- 0 early on before eventually going down 6- 4.

His response was emphatic as he handed Slovakia’ s Ju raj Gal loan 8-1 thrashing in their afternoon meeting. Smith led 7- 0 after three ends and the contest was mercifully cut short after only six ends.

Muir head was equally ruth less yesterday as she ended Italian Diana Gaspari’s three- match winning run. The 2011 champion quickly opened up a fivestone advantage and completed a one - sided 8- 1 victory at the sixth end for her third win in four games.