Scotland’s Team Muirhead continued their superb start to the Le Gruyere AOL European Curling Championships when they staged a fine comeback from an early deficit to beat Sweden’s defending European and reigning Olympic champions Team Hasselborg.
After missing out on claiming the hammer at the opening end by losing out in the last stone draw, the Scots looked to be in trouble early on when they conceded a two at the opening end, were forced at the second and then lost another two at the third to find themselves 4-1 down.
That was exactly the start the Swedes would have hoped for, however a two at the fourth and a steal at the fifth allowed the Scots to level the match at the halfway break and they came out of that well to steal again at the sixth.
The momentum had shifted and when Scottish pressure produced further errors at the seventh they stole yet again, scoring at a fourth consecutive end to lead 6-4.
They then forced the Swedes to take a single at the eighth and after having to take a single at the ninth to take a 7-5 lead, they then covered the angles to leave Anna Hasselborg with a very low percentage raise to try to take the match down an extra end and she was unable to pull it off.
“Sweden got off to the text book start to put us on the back foot, but we ground it out and stayed in there,” said Muirhead. 
“Overall, we’re really pleased with how it went. In the second half we really stepped it up as a team, capitalised on a lot of their mistakes and left a lot of tough shots for them and really that’s what we wanted to do.”
Having faced a forbidding looking schedule, up against three teams that have already qualified for next year’s Olympics in Beijing on the first two days of round-robin play, the vastly experienced skip admitted that it had been a dream start for her new look line-up.
“To be sitting on three and zero right now, you couldn’t ask for better could you and it really puts us in a good place going into the middle part of the round-robin. All we can do is look to continue that, because we know how long the round-robin is.”
Scotland have two matches on day three facing Germany, the only other unbeaten team in the competition in the morning and then Estonia, who have yet to register a win, later in the day.
Scotland Team 
Eve Muirhead
Vicky Wright
Jen Dodds
Hailey Duff
Mili Smith
#curling #ECC2021
PHOTOS: WCF / CELINE STUCKI
Schedule and Results
Saturday 20 November
W Scotland v Russia 7-4
M Scotland v Sweden 6-2
W Scotland v Denmark 8-2
Sunday 21 November
M Scotland v Finland 6-2
W Scotland v Sweden 8-5
M Scotland v Italy 6pm
Monday 22 November
W Scotland v Germany 7am
M Scotland v Netherlands 11am
W Scotland v Estonia 3pm
M Scotland v Germany 7pm
Tuesday 23 November
W Scotland v Italy 8am
M Scotland v Denmark 1pm
W Scotland v Czech Republic 6pm
Wednesday 24 November 
M Scotland v Switzerland 8am
W Scotland v Switzerland 1pm
M Scotland v Czech Republic 6pm
Thursday 25 November
W Scotland v Turkey 7am
M Scotland v Norway 11am
W Semi Final 2 v 3 3pm
W Semi Final 1 v 4 7pm
Friday 26 November
M Semi Final 2 v 3 8am
M Semi Final 1 v 4 12.30pm
W Bronze medal game 5pm
Saturday 27 November
M Bronze medal game 8am
W Gold medal game 11.30am
M Gold medal game 4pm
