Eve Muirhead's Scotland depart World Curling Championships

After losing their opening match, Scotland went on an impressive seven-game winning run before sacrificing a 5-1 lead to lose 7-6 to Switzerland on Wednesday and then conceding the contest with Japan at 10-4 the following day.

That set up a winner-takes-all clash with Canada on Thursday night and at the midway point the teams were level at 2-2.

But the breakthrough came in the sixth when a fortunate wick for Canada led Muirhead to go for an ambitious shot which did not come off and it resulted in the hosts taking a 5-2 lead.

Muirhead did pull it back to 5-4 going into the ninth but it was to prove to be the last as Canada’s raised take-out saw them go 9-4 in front and Scotland conceded.

Muirhead said: “It’s hard because we played pretty well at the start of the week and we got a lot of good play going.

“It’s hard to take that we’re out but we lost the last three games and at major championships you just can’t do that.”

“I guess the Swiss game has come back to bite us, but that’s sport,” she added.

“I missed my last shot in the sixth [against Canada]. It comes down to skip shot and it makes you look a bit of a fool. You get the glory when you win, but when you lose you get the sack because you don’t make the shots.”

It means the winner of Switzerland and Japan will progress to the final, with the loser going into the semi-final to play the winner of Russia and Canada’s play-off.

Sportsbeat 2016