Skip Eve Muirhead is hoping for more of the same from here on out after Scotland halted their losing streak with back-to-back wins on day five of the World Women’s Curling Championships in Beijing. Scotland headed into their first clash with China off the back of three straight losses but returned to winning ways with an 8-6 win over the host nation. And they didn’t stop there, returning to the Beijing ice later that day to beat Switzerland 7-4, the Swiss team having defeated Italy 10-2 earlier in the day. That results saw Scotland move up to joint fourth in the rankings alongside Switzerland and Germany on five wins and four losses, and Muirhead was delighted to put an end to their losing streak. “We knew what we had to do, after a not-good day at the office yesterday, and that was to get two wins on the board to keep us in the competition. We did that,” Muirhead said. “We were playing against two tough teams – China the home nation, and Switzerland, who are playing really well – so we’re really pleased. “We couldn’t really have asked for much more. Hopefully, now we have a bit of momentum going. “As usual we don’t like doing it the easy way, we always like to do it the hard way. We need to continue that play into tomorrow now.” Meanwhile, Canada have already qualified from the round-robin stage as a 9-3 victory over the Czech Republic made it nine wins from as many matches. Earlier in the day, Canada beat Sweden which was the second loss for the Swedes who sit second in the standings having defeated South Korea 6-5, with Russia third having beaten winless Denmark and the USA. The morning session saw South Korea beat the Czech Republic 10-3, while in the afternoon there were victories for Germany and Italy against the USA and China respectively – with the Germans then downing Denmark 9-5 in the evening session. Sportsbeat 2017