Team Muirhead firmly back on track with win over Italy at world championships
Scotland’s Team Muirhead got back to winning ways at the LGT World Women’s Curling Championships with a commanding 9-6 defeat of Italy that kept them on track for the play-offs in Calgary.
Having lost their previous two matches against Sweden and Korea, the teams that contested the last Winter Olympic
final, Eve Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds and Lauren Gray needed that win to remain on course to ensure that Team GB will be among the competing teams in the women’s event when the sport’s biggest competition takes place in Beijing next year.
It was rarely in doubt as they consistently took advantage of the ends where they had the hammer, setting the tone at the opening end with a two, an effort they repeated at the third, fifth and seventh ends.
Forcing the Italians to take singles at the second and fourth ends meant they had a four shot advantage at the halfway stage and, having let a 3-1 lead at the midway break slip against the Swedes earlier in the day, this time they made no mistake.
“I’m really pleased with the team’s performance and the flow of that game,” skip Muirhead said afterwards.
“After the disappointing loss this morning where we let a few shots slip in the second part of the game, we really stepped it up for those key shots each end. The first part of the game was very much textbook scoring, taking our twos when we had the hammer and scoring our ones and we just kept control throughout and managed to see it out.”