Scotland qualify for World Curling play-offs
· Yahoo Sports
Scotland have qualified for the World Men's Curling Championship play-offs after the top six places in the round-robin were decided with four sessions of matches still to be played in Utah.
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Ross Whyte's rink had earlier defeated China 9-3 to cruise to a seventh consecutive win and set up a Thursday showdown live on the BBC against Switzerland - one of the other rinks then in a four-way tie at the top of the round-robin stage.
But wins for the Swiss, Sweden, Italy and hosts United States ensured that they would qualify along with Canada and Whyte's rink, who are looking to retain the title for Scotland after last year's win by Bruce Mouat.
It is now a battle between those six to finish in the top two and progress to the semi-finals automatically without having to feature in the play-offs.
Whyte's rink, making their debut at this level, overnight face Andreas Haarstad's Norwegians, who have lost all nine of their matches, before taking on Marco Hoesli's Swiss at 16:00 GMT on Thursday - a match being shown live on the BBC Sport website and iPlayer.
The Scots have recovered from opening defeats by seven-time champion Niklas Edin's Swedes and Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi's Japanese.
Since then, only John Shuster's US have finished within two shots of the Scots as they have reeled off seven big scores, with Xu Xiaoming's Chinese, ranked 12th in the world, the latest victims.
Following on from Tuesday's 10-4 defeat of Germany, Whyte's rink never looked back after stealing one at the opening end.
However, it was scoring five at the sixth end, to take an 8-3 lead, that was the pivotal moment as the Chinese suffered a sixth defeat out of nine.
The Swiss warmed up for their meeting with the Scots with a 9-2 defeat of South Korea to head the table along with the Swedes, both of whom have won eight and lost two of their matches.
Matt Dunstone's Canadians and the Scots have seven wins and two defeats before their final games on Wednesday.
Stefano Spiller's Italy rink have seven wins and three defeats along with the USA.
Whyte - along with Robin Brydone, Euan Kyle and Craig Waddell - are representing Scotland after Mouat's world number one rink elected not to compete after their silver medal at the Olympics in Cortina this year.
With Canada's Olympic champion, Brad Jacobs, and Switzerland's Yannick Schwaller similarly sitting this one out, fourth-ranked Dunstone and Whyte, in fifth, are the top-ranked teams competing in the United States.
Shuster is eighth, Edin is currently ranked 13, with Hoesli in 18th and Spiller in 43rd, while Scotland's next opponents, Norway's Haarstad, are down in 49th.