Scotland slip up against Italy

After squeezing past USA in their opening in Beijing, it was Scotland's turn to be on the end of a narrow loss as Italy won 7-6.

Scotland started well and led 2-1 after the third end, but in the next Muirhead's hit and stay went wrong to hand Italy a steal of one that levelled the score.

The Scots blanked the fifth end before having to settle for just one shot in the sixth for a 3-2 lead.

In the seventh end Italian skip Diana Gaspari, who is making her tenth World Championships appearance, hit out a Scottish stone for a 5-3 lead and that stretched to 7-4 heading into the tenth.

A complete miss by Italy early in the tenth end gave Scotland the chance to build as they sought force an extra end, but they could only manage two as the Italians picked up their first win of the event.

"That's not a game we want to give up," Muirhead said. "I'm not just saying this because we lost, but she played great – show them nothing of any stone behind the guard and they made it.

"I wouldn't say we were bad – we had a few dodgy stones that we needed to sort out, which put us on the back foot, but they played well.

"I wouldn't say we were flat, we were up for this game as any other game, we just didn't convert when perhaps we should have.

"When it comes to the last end, one miss from them and the three is on. And we got that miss but unfortunately didn't come away with the three.

"I'd have loved to take them to an extra end but you can't expect to always steal games.

"It's still early in the week, and obviously disappointing, but there’s a long way to go."

Elsewhere, Switzerland beat hosts China 8-7 while Canada and the Czech Republic were also victorious to maintain their 100 per cent record.

Canada lead the standings after their 10-9 extra end win over Russia, with three wins from three.

The Czech Republic beat USA, 7-3 to join Switzerland in second place in the standings, with two wins each.

Meanwhile, Germany beat South Korea 10-6 to pick up their first win after two losses, and Denmark have now lost two from two as they went down 7-4 against Sweden.

Sportsbeat 2017