A combination of precision power and deft touch when it mattered most saw Ross Paterson steer Scotland into the play-offs at the LGT World Men’s Curling Championships in Las Vegas as they came through a highly pressurised final match against Switzerland.
In the end, both teams were to reach the knockout stages after Korea suffered a shock extra end defeat in their last match against the Netherlands, whose win lifted them off the bottom of the table at the end of the round-robin stage of the competition. 
However, neither team could have anticipated that as they went into what looked like a winner-take-all encounter which the Scottish quartet of Paterson, Kyle Waddell, Duncan Menzies and Craig Waddell dominated from the early stages.
Their performance was all the more impressive after they had suffered a third successive defeat earlier in the day against Canada, albeit the way they played in losing 8-6 to the Olympic bronze medallists, who finished top of the round-robin standings this week, had given them considerable encouragement.
“After the disappointment of yesterday we came into the game against Canada today knowing that we ideally wanted to do was win two games, but what we really wanted in the first instance was a better performance to come back fighting and playing good curling again, because yesterday we weren’t at the races,” said Paterson.
“We might have lost against Canada, but we took a whole load of positives from that game. We had definite chances against them, more so in the first half and after we finished that one we knew that if we played at that level against Switzerland and just tightened up on the odd shot here and there from the whole team we would be in a really good position.
“So, we went into the game tonight with that mindset and did exactly what we wanted to do.
“We won the hammer, we got a two on the board at the first end and controlled it from there, putting them under pressure throughout the first half and a 5-1 lead at the break was a great spot to be in.”
They extended that advantage to 6-1 at the sixth end, but threes for the Swiss at the seventh and ninth end closed things up and having missed two attempts at double take-outs that could effectively have wrapped things up at the ninth, Paterson found himself faced with another at the last end, which he duly delivered before then producing the draw which secured the 9-7 win.
“In the second half the scoreline maybe made the game look closer than it was,” he observed.
“At the seventh end they played really well and we just didn’t make a double to get out of it, then at the ninth end I just got caught on my two shots on a track.
“The ice this week has been really tracky and unfortunately we’re still getting caught in patches, so we gave them what turned out to be a really cheap three.
“That was disappointing, but the guys gave me support and said they had to trust that I was throwing the stones pretty well and if someone offered us a one up lead going into the last end with hammer we’d have taken that, so, I drew the four foot for the win and I’m delighted with the bounce back from the guys again.
“We came in knowing we had a tough day and that it was just about performing well and getting ourselves through.” 
They now find themselves up against the hosts with Canada awaiting the winners in the semi-finals, while in the other half of the draw Italy will face Switzerland for the right to play defending champions Sweden in the last four.
“We’re just delighted to be in the play-offs. That was our first goal for the week, so we’ve achieved that,” said Paterson.
“This is a new event that we’re in now and I fully believe that we’ve as much chance as anybody else now.
“We’ve got USA with hammer because we finished fourth overall. It will be a tough game, because they’ve got the home crowd on their side.
“We’re proud of where we are, but we’re now in the mindset that this is a new event, we start fresh tomorrow and we just want to keep knocking off as many wins as we can.
“Three wins is the goal, but we’ll just take it game by game and if we can keep playing like we did tonight we’ll see what happens, but I’m feeling pretty good.”
Team Scotland
Ross Paterson (vice-skip)
Kyle Waddell (skip)
Duncan Menzies
Craig Waddell
Euan Kyle (alternate)
Broadcast games on The Curling Channel in partnership with Recast
Tuesday 5 April
22:00 — Scotland v United States
Friday 8 April
17:00 — Scotland v Canada
Saturday 9 April
03:00 — Scotland v Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
22:00 — Qualification Games
22:00 — Qualification Game 2
03:00 — Semi-final 1
03:00 — Semi-final 2
Sunday 10 April
19:00 — Bronze medal game
00:00 midnight — Gold medal game
Schedule and results: 7W-5L
Saturday 2 April
Scotland – Italy 5-4
Sunday 3 April
Scotland – Korea 6-9
Scotland – Norway 4-7
Monday 4 April
Scotland – Denmark 7-3
Scotland – Germany 6-4
Tuesday 5 April
Scotland – USA 9-7
Scotland – Finland 10-5
Wednesday 6 April
Scotland – Czech Republic 6-0
Thursday 7 April
Scotland – Netherlands 4-5
Scotland – Sweden 2-8
Friday 8 April
Scotland – Canada 6-8
Scotland – Switzerland 9-7
Saturday 9 April
Qualifications games
Scotland v USA
Switzerland v Italy
Semi finals
Sunday 10 April
Bronze medal game
Gold medal game
#curling #WMCC2022
