England’s Karen Aspey and Stewart Pimblett completed their SD Biosensor World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Championships campaign in Korea with an impressive 10-3 win over Slovenia, but missed out on the quarter-finals by the narrowest of margins.
With the top two in each of the three pools automatically qualifying for the last eight, the remaining quarter-final places went to the two third placed teams with the best Last Stone Draw (LSD)/Draw Shot Challenge records. 
Aspey and Pimblett duly finished with a record of four wins and two losses behind unbeaten pool leaders USA and had to wait for the outcome of the meeting between Italy and Switzerland to discover their fate.
Defeat for Italy would leave the English pair in outright second spot and things looked promising when the Swiss jumped into a 5-2 lead by the halfway stage in the Gangneung Curling Centre.
However, they then lost a five at the fifth end and were unable to recover allowing the Italians to finish level with Aspey and Pimblett on four wins and their victory in their head-to-head encounter earlier in the competition meant they finished second in the pool.
Japan and Estonia, who had finished in third place in the other two pools meanwhile boasted superior LSD records which saw them through at England’s expense.
“I am a bit gutted to be honest, but pleased with how we have done in the games,” said Pimblett.
As the more experienced member of the partnership, he shouldered extra responsibility for the way they went out.
“I feel like this is a heavy loss tonight,” he continued.
“When you look at our LSD Karen did awesome in her six shots, hitting the house six times out of six, while I only hit the house two times out of six, so as far as I am concerned I have lost us a place in the qualification games.
“I feel I have let the team down, but this will help make me become a stronger athlete as a result of this and it is something I will really work on.”
Reflecting on the final day and the week’s performances as a whole, however, he expressed satisfaction with the way they performed after recovering from a heavy defeat in the opening round against Italy before winning four of their remaining five matches.
“I felt it was a professional performance from both of us against Slovenia and we controlled the game from start to finish,” he said.
“Overall it has been a good week and on any other day this week I think we would have beaten Italy, but we started that game too slow, nerves got to me a bit but I am really proud of how Karen and I bounced back with the help of our coaches Rosemary and Tony (Lenton).
“In a strong group, we didn’t know how good we would be in this company and Mixed Doubles is still very new to Karen, so tonight it feels a bit sore but there are lots of positives to take away from this.”
While Scotland’s Charlotte McKenna and Gary Smith knew they could not make the play-offs as they headed into the final day of round-robin action, they too finished on a high, beating Turkiye 7-5 to record their first win of the week, then edging out Norway 5-4 to move up to fourth place in their pool.
“It was fantastic getting those two wins today, which were crucial because they got us up the table a bit, which helps towards the points for qualifying for the Milan/Cortina Paralympics in 2026,” said Smith.
“We’re really pleased, especially for our coaching staff, because we’ve not put in the performances we should have, which has been really disappointing. 
“We now need to take the positives from the things that have gone right and move forward from there.
“In our last match, all credit must go to Charlie for her draw with the last shot.
“There was a lot of pressure on it because she had to nail the button which is exactly what she did and I was really pleased for her.”
Having also had a taste of the action the previous week after he was called up as a late replacement for the team event in which Scotland finished 10th of the 12 competing nations, Smith acknowledged that he and his compatriots know they have considerable work to do as they look to qualify for, then build towards the Milan/Cortina Paralympics.
“As in the team game, the standard’s getting much better year on year, so we need to improve,” he said.
“We can’t just think that what we do is acceptable, we need to keep getting better.”
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England Mixed Doubles Team
Stewart Pimblett
Karen Aspey
Team Coach Tony Lenton
Assistant Coach Rosemary Lenton
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team
Charlotte McKenna
Gary Smith
Team Coach Niall Ryder
Team Leader David Leith
Schedule
Monday 11 March
Scotland – Slovakia 3-11
England – Italy 3-12
Tuesday 12 March
England – Switzerland 6-5
Scotland – Latvia 3-6
England – Finland 8-3
Wednesday 13 March
Scotland – Poland 5-8
England – USA 4-8
Scotland – Estonia 6-7
England – Canada 6-4
Thursday 14 March
Scotland – Turkiye 7-5
England – Slovenia 10-3
Scotland – Norway 5-4
Friday 15 March
Quarter Finals
Semi Finals
Saturday 16 March
Final
Images: WCF
