Italy complete European Curling Championship semi-final line-up
BySportsbeat
Updated 23/11/2017 at 11:17 GMT
Italy became the fourth and final women's rink to book their place in the European Curling Championship semi-finals with a dramatic come-from-behind victory against Denmark.
Diana Gaspari, Italy, Curling
Image credit: Getty Images
The Danes needed to win to keep their own last-four hopes alive and looked set to do just that in St Gallen as they notched a double in the eighth end to lead 5-3.
Yet the Italian rink – skipped by Diana Gaspari – took one in the ninth and another in the tenth to force an extra end, where they broke Danish hearts to prevail 6-5.
That guarantees fourth spot in the Round Robin stage and a semi-final match-up with unbeaten Sweden.
The Swedes made it a perfect eight from eight with a crushing 9-4 victory over Czech Republic – an opening-end double, followed by trebles in the third and fourth doing the bulk of the damage.
That victory secures top spot for Team Hasselborg and, in a quirk of fate, they will complete their Round Robin campaign against Italy on Thursday afternoon before squaring off against the same opponents in the semi-finals.
The other semi-final will see Switzerland take on Scotland and the crowd got a preview of that clash in a tense contest on Wednesday evening.
A back-and-forth match went to an extra end when Team Muirhead took one in the tenth but the hosts made the most of having the hammer to notch two and triumph 9-7.
But Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoni claims there is very little between the rinks despite her outfit's victory, which guarantees them second place in the group and the hammer in the semi-final rematch:
To play in front of a home crowd – it's so easy to get motivated. There wasn't a big difference between the teams – the Scottish would have deserved to win as well because they played great. They had us in big trouble at one point but we had the hammer in the last end and that was the key. I don't think we will approach the semi-final any differently. This win was for the hammer in that match, so it did mean something. Hopefully that will be an advantage but I think the strategy will be the same.
Elsewhere on Wednesday evening, Germany and Russia each recorded their third wins of the European Championship by beating Turkey 7-6 and Hungary 8-3 respectively.
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