Eve Muirhead heaped praise onto newcomer Hailey Duff after Scotland eased to a 7-4 victory over this year’s World Championship finalists Russia in their opening match at the Le Gruyere AOP European Curling Championships in Lillehammer.
The 24-year-old from Forfar was making her first appearance at a major international championship alongside the vastly experienced combination of skip Muirhead, vice skip Vicky Wright and current World Mixed Doubles Champion Jen Dodds and playing at lead she repeatedly set up ends well from the outset to help her team gain, then maintain the upper hand. 
“I’m particularly proud of Hailey, making her debut at the European Championships. She came out and proved that she’s one of the best leads here,” said Muirhead.
“We’re really pleased to get that first win, especially because Russia are definitely one of the favourites here after finishing runners-up at the World Championship, so it was always going to be a very tough game and we controlled the scoreboard very well.”
By contrast to Duff and the fifth member of their team, Mili Smith who is also making her first appearances, Muirhead is playing in her 13th Euros, having won the event twice and medalled on nine occasions and she is fully aware of the importance of getting off to a good start.
“It’s going to be a long round-robin and it’s always nice to start knowing you’re ahead and not having to constantly chase,” she said. 
“We couldn’t really have asked for much more in the first game. There are still some bits that we can get better at, but overall I’m really, really pleased.
“It's always nice to get the first game under your belt and a win’s a bonus, but we’re all playing well, so hopefully that will continue.”
Muirhead expressed confidence in the way the team is developing, having emerged from the nine-player squad system that British Curling used in the early part of the season in seeking to establish the strongest line-up for this event and the forthcoming Olympic Qualifying Event.
“We’ve played a couple of tournaments together and they’ve been very good. We just seem to be building all the time, so we need to continue doing that and hopefully we can do that for the next nine games,” she said.
The Scots’ second match on the opening day is against Denmark’s Team Dupont who suffered a surprise defeat to Italy in their first round match. 
Scotland Team
Eve Muirhead
Vicky Wright
Jen Dodds
Hailey Duff
Mili Smith
#curling #ECC2021
PHOTOS: WCF/CELINE STUCKI & STEVE SEIXEIRO
