Eve Muirhead's Scotland knocked out of World Curling Championships

A disappointed Eve Muirhead admitted that it's going to take a few days to get over her World Championship heartache after Scotland missed out on a play-off place.

Back-to-back defeats to Denmark and China meant Muirhead's rink finished with a 6-7 record in Calgary, only enough for eighth and an early flight home.

Six teams progress to the next round and with that comes a quota place for the Olympic Winter Games next year in Beijing, meaning Scotland will have to sweat it out in a final qualifying tournament later this year.

That rubs salt into a gaping wound for Muirhead, who won Olympic bronze at Sochi 2014, and the way they finished against China will do little for confidence.

China entered their match with a 5-7 record and Scotland looked set for victory when they moved 4-2 up but three China points in the eight end turned the match on its head. They were level after nine ends before China used their last stone of the match to score the single point they needed for the win.

"It's been a really disappointing week for us in general," sad the skip. "It's never nice to be finished early. We need to keep our heads up, which will be tricky, because it's going to hurt for a few days, I know that, but we'll do our best to not let it hurt too much."

Canada and USA claimed the last two play-off places on a frantic final day of round robin action, with Korea missing out despite sharing a 7-6 record.

Hosts Canada will face Sweden (10-3) in the first round of the play-offs, with the winners set to face Russia (11-2) in the semi-finals. USA tackle Denmark (8-5) first up, with the winners progressing to a daunting match against Switzerland (12-1). Switzerland underlined their class with a 9-5 win against Estonia (1-12), despite fourth player Alina Paetz taking over skip duties.