Rebecca Morrison’s women made a mixed start to the the European Curling Championships at Curl Aberdeen.
Having added Olympic champion Jen Dodds to their ranks since winning a bronze medal at this event a year ago, the five player team went into the event in their skip’s home city in confident mood.
That showed as they registered an 8-4 win over Turkey in their opening match before a narrow 11-9 defeat against defending champions Denmark.
Morrison, Dodds, Gina Aitken and Sophie Jackson controlled the match against Turkey throughout, moving into a 4-0 lead after three ends and maintained their advantage throughout.
“We were delighted to get the win on the board in the morning,” said their skip.
“It always settles you in when you win your first game at a championship.”
Sinclair then replaced Aitken in their second match as they took on last year’s winners and they again started well, establishing a 4-2 lead after three ends, before suffering a major setback when they conceded a five at the fourth end.
How the standing are looking after day 1️⃣ of the #ECC#curling pic.twitter.com/AdaVpN0NIV
— World Curling (@worldcurling) November 18, 2023
Morrison was pleased with the way her team responded to that, however and again when they conceded a steal of two at the seventh end to fall 10-6 behind with just three ends to play.
A two at the eighth and a steal at the ninth then saw them apply substantial pressure, but the Danes held on to take the match 11-9.
Morrison said: “When we lost the five we were still only three down and if we’d been three down and hadn’t lost a five we wouldn’t be feeling like the game was over, so we never got our heads down over that, we kept fighting.
“None of us felt down about it. We were all actually playing well throughout that game. It was just a few shots here and there that cost us a five and the steal of two.
“We were punished pretty hard considering how we were playing and it’s not a reflection of the game, so we’re still feeling good.”
It all came down to the skips' stones in the 10th end, but defending champions Denmark found an edge over Scotland to clinch victory this evening. 🤝
Next up, Sweden. 🇸🇪
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— Scottish Curling (@scottishcurling) November 18, 2023
Next up is a meeting with Olympic mixed doubles champion Stefania Constantini’s Italians who had a similar opening day, losing to Germany before beating the Turks.
“It’s always nice to get a win when you only have a one game day, so we’ll fuel ourselves up in the morning and we’ll be raring to go come the afternoon,” said Morrison.
“I don’t think we’ve played them this season and we had a mixed bag against them last season, so we’d just like to get off to a good head-to-head start against them this time around.”
Scotland’s match against Italy starts at 2pm and will be shown on the BBC Sport website.
In the men’s event, Bruce Mouat’s world champions made the perfect start with a 5-3 win against Norway.
