Playoff Skirmish at World Mixed Doubles Curling

Scotland and Canada are the first nations through to playoffs at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Geneva.

Excitement now turns to the batch of teams in second place—four of them, to be precise.

Hosts Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Japan are all atop Group A at 6-2.

Group A teams have just one round-robin match remaining on Thursday, which will see Japan battle Sweden, Switzerland take on Korea and Norway meet New Zealand.

Italy is just behind at 5-3. Olympic mixed doubles champion Stefania Constantini and teammate Sebastiano Arman have lost three straight games after opening their week with five straight victories.

They dropped a six-ender to open their match against the Swiss on Wednesday.

Scotland became the first team to reach the playoffs with a 10-4 win over Hungary in Group B action on Wednesday.

“Our first goal was to qualify for the playoffs, so to have secured that with a couple of games to go feels nice,” said Eve Muirhead, who is partnered with Bobby Lammie and undefeated at 7-0.

“We want to keep the momentum going though, because it’s coming to the crucial part of the week and that’s when you want to step it up a little bit. We just want to keep doing what we’re doing, we’re managing things well, we’re playing key shots when it matters, and we’re just enjoying it.”

Canada beat England 6-2 to move to 6-1 for second place behind the Scots. They too qualified for the playoffs.

“We had good control of draw weight and Jocelyn (Peterman) got her first ones in some great spots,” said Brett Gallant.

“We’re getting more comfortable with the ice conditions with every draw, and we’re getting more precise with our shots.”

It was a bleak day for the United States who suffered their third successive loss—to Australia by a 12-5 count.

“We felt really good in that game,” said Australia’s Tahli Gill who, with teammate Dean Hewitt, had a wild time at February’s Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

“Every win from now on is going to be crucial. We have to win the rest of our games to maybe have a chance. We’re just going to go out there and try to keep the momentum going.”

Americans Becca and Matt Hamilton are still tied for third in Group B at 4-3, along with Germany.

The top teams are starting to throw their weight around as the playoffs approach. In 15 matches over three draws on Wednesday, only one game went the full eight ends of play. Only three others finished with less than five points separating the winners and losers.