Two wins on the penultimate day of round-robin play were enough to take Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat into the knockout stages at the World Mixed Doubles Championship in Korea as they saw off Hungary 7-6 before registering a crucial 8-6 victory over fellow play-off contenders Australia.
The 2021 champions, who are looking to keep the title - that was successfully defended by Eve Muirhead and Bobby Lammie - in Scotland for a third successive year, had gone into the day knowing that everything would hang on that meeting with the Aussies, regardless of the outcome of their meeting with the bottom-placed Hungarians. 
However, they had expected a tough battle in that opening match of the day after Hungary’s Linda Joo and Lorinc Tatar had claimed their first win of the event the previous day to give themselves a chance of avoiding relegation to the B division and so it proved, which set them up well for what was to come.
“The Hungarians definitely came to play today,” said Dodds.
“It was just one of those games that we always felt in control, but we still had to grind it out.
“You’re always going to have those kind of games through the week and that put us in a good position for the Aussie game.”
The Scots had taken a narrow 4-3 lead into the midway break in that match, but a typical team effort saw them combine their knowhow and skill to make the decisive break at the fifth end, when Dodds found the perfect line to hit the corner of one of Scotland’s stones to promote it onto the button and remove two of their opponents, leaving them lying three.
“I think that double was a key shot,” said Dodds.
“We had been pretty close for a couple of ends and just didn’t get them converted fully, but then Bruce spotted that opportunity when they guarded the other shot.
“We knew we had a bit of room to play with and making it just gave us that wee bit of room.”
By contrast, they powered ahead with a four at the opening end of their meeting with Australia’s Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt in what was effectively a pre play-off knockout encounter.
“That opening end was great for us,” said Dodds.
“Bruce played an amazing run back to lie three perfectly behind the guard and after that we were always in control.
“You know in mixed doubles it’s always tight, so even them getting two back at the next end meant they were only two down and things can change really quickly, but I think that was one of our best performances so far and it’s given us a lot of confidence moving forward.”
While they now go into their only match tomorrow against the Czech Republic, knowing they are through, they are in no mood to relax.
“I don’t think this makes things any easier,” said Dodds.
“Obviously, we still want to win tomorrow and we just have to keep moving forward with the things we want to do for the week, sticking to our processes.
“We want to keep this momentum going.
“After that great win against Australia we’ve got the Czechs tomorrow, so we just want to keep building on what we’ve been doing.”
While they won the title on their only previous appearance in the event together, they are preparing themselves for a new experience in the play-offs.
“We’ve been here before, but I think last time we went straight through to the semis, so going into the quarter-finals will be something new, but we know we’ll need to play our best, because whoever we play from the other section will have been playing well,” Dodds observed.
“We’ve watched a couple of games from the other section between our games, so whoever we play we know we’ll need to bring our ‘A’ game.”
WATCH LIVE games from Recast’s The Curling Channel.
World Mixed Doubles Curling Championships.
Schedule and Results:
Saturday 22 April
Session 1
Scotland – Canada 4-8
Session 3
Scotland – Denmark 7-1
Sunday 23 April
Session 5 – 6.00am
Scotland – Netherlands 7-4
Monday 24 April
Session 7
Scotland – Korea 11-6
Session 9
Scotland – Italy 8-6
Tuesday 25 April
Session 11
Scotland – Estonia 5-6
Wednesday 26 April
Session 13
Scotland – Hungary 7-6
Session 15
Scotland – Australia 8-6 Qualified
Thursday 27 April
Session 17 – 6.00am
Scotland – Czech Republic
Friday 28 April
Qualification Games – 2.00am
Semi Final – 10.00am
Saturday 29 April
BRONZE Medal Game 2.00am
GOLD Medal Game 6.00am
Scotland MD Team
Jen Dodds
Bruce Mouat
Greg Drummond (MD Team Coach)
Sheila Swan (Coach)
Image: WCF / Stephen Fisher
#curling #WMDCC2023
