Scotland’s women put in a high quality performance in the semi-final of the Le Gruyere AOP European Championships, but had victory stolen from them at the final end when 2018 Olympic champion skip Anna Hasselborg produced an exceptional draw with her final delivery of the match.
The match statistics showed that Rebecca Morrison, Jen Dodds, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson out-played each of their opposite numbers on the night and overcame starting the match without last stone advantage to have the upper hand heading into the last two ends.
However, the highly experienced Swedish skip responded to the pressure they placed on her at each of the last two ends to win the match for her team 6-4 after Morrison narrowly failed with a high tariff attempt at an angled raise to score the two required to win the game. 
It was a cruel end to a day that had started with the Scots needing to beat Norway in their final round-robin match to secure their play-off place, winning that one 5-4 to take a five match winning run into the semi-finals.
“We’re really happy with how we’ve been playing the whole tournament, so the semi-final today is very tough to take, especially when we were all playing so well,” said Morrison.
They knew that they could not let their heads go down, however, since there remains the chance of finishing on a high by repeating the feat achieved by three of the team – Morrison, Sinclair and Jackson – who won the third place play-off to claim a bronze medal on their first visit to the Europeans two years ago.
“We’ve just got to find a way to re-group tomorrow for the bronze medal game and we know that if we can play like that there’s a good chance that we’ll come home with a medal,” said Morrison.
They will take last stone advantage into that match against an Italian team they beat in the round-robin stages and who were beaten 7-3 by defending champions Switzerland in the other semi-final.
Please click here for more information and results
Scotland’s play-off games will be live streamed on the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport Scotland website.
Watch on BBC iPlayer
Watch on BBC Sport Scotland website
Scotland Schedule:
Saturday 16 November
Session 1 – women
Scotland – Sweden 5-8
Session 1 – men
Scotland – Netherlands 8-6
Session 2 – women
Scotland – Denmark 11-9 (EE)
Sunday 17 November
Session 2 – men
Scotland – Norway 6-5
Session 3 – women
Scotland – Switzerland 1-8
Session 3 – men
Scotland – England 8-1
Monday 18 November
Session 4 – women
Scotland – Turkiye 4-5
Session 4 – men
Scotland – Switzerland 7-6
Session 5 – women
Scotland – Hungary 9-3
Session 5 – men
Scotland – Austria 10-2
Tuesday 19 November
Session 6 – women
Scotland – Estonia 8-1
Session 6 – men
Scotland – Italy 7-10
Session 7 – women
Scotland – Lithuania 9-2
Wednesday 20 November
Session 7 – men
Scotland – Germany 12-5
Session 8 – women
Scotland – Italy 9-5
Session 8 – men
Scotland – Czechia 10-2
Thursday 21 November
Session 9 – women
Scotland – Norway 5-4
Session 9 – men
Scotland – Sweden 11-7
Semi Finals – women
Scotland – Sweden 4-6
Switzerland – Italy 7-3
Friday 22 November
Semi Finals – men – 07.00
Scotland – Switzerland
Germany - Norway
Bronze medal game – women – 12.00
Scotland - Italy
Bronze medal game – men – 17.00
Saturday 23 November
Gold medal game – women – 08.00
Switzerland - Sweden
Gold medal game – men – 13.00
Image: World Curling
