Women's curling at Beijing 2022 Olympics Day 7 round-up: Sweden join Switzerland in semi-finals as battle for top four intensifies

Sweden joined Switzerland in the Beijing 2022 women’s curling semi-finals on Wednesday (16 February), with no fewer than five teams battling over the last two spots.

The reigning Olympic champions booked their ticket to the playoffs with one match to spare after an 8-5 victory over ROC.

Hosts China threw the proverbial cat among the pigeons with two wins on Wednesday over medal hopefuls Great Britain (8-4) and Canada (11-9).

They are now 4-5 and need GB, Canada and Korea all to lose on Thursday - and Japan to win - to make the semis.

For British skip Eve Muirhead, the defeat came in a cagey affair which China broke open with a triple in the ninth end to lead 7-4.

Muirhead was left with a difficult double takeout to try to salvage an extra end but she failed to pull it off, and China stole one to complete victory.

GB are now 4-4 and need to win their final game against ROC to have any chance of progress.

China also scored a deserved win over Canada to leave Jennifer Jones and her rink needing a win on Thursday

Down 5-3 at midway, the Sochi 2014 gold medallist piled on the pressure and was rewarded with a five-point end to take an 8-5 lead after six ends.

But China skip Wang Rui was in inspired form, responding with a double and then a steal of one to level it up.

Canada scored one in the ninth, and China replied with a single to force the extra end.

Jones had the hammer but, after China had done well to put stones in scoring positions near the button, missed a run-back with the final shot of the match to give the Chinese a steal of two and the win.

Canada, like Great Britain, move to 4-4 with a final round-robin match against Denmark remaining.

Beijing 2022 women's curling round up: Japan end Team USA hopes to home in on playoffs

Two defeats on Wednesday ended the United States' hopes of reaching the semi-finals.

A narrow 7-6 morning defeat to Canada was followed by a 10-7 reverse at the hands of Japan. That dropped Tabitha Peterson's rink to 4-5 to send them home.

Team Japan looked sharp from the outset, following an opening single with a three-point steal for a healthy 4-0 lead.

USA did not get going unto the seventh end when Peterson scored four to level the contest at 7-7.

Undeterred, Fujisawa Satsuki racked up a double and then a steal of one in the ninth as Peterson's draw with the hammer came up just short.

And the Japanese successfully killed off any chance of USA getting the three they needed to force an extra end with Peterson conceding.

Japan are in third place on their own with a 5-3 record, but face world champions Switzerland in their final round-robin match.

Republic of Korea bounced back from their 8-4 morning defeat to the Swiss to post a crucial 8-7 win over Denmark.

The PyeongChang 2018 silver medallists are now 4-4 overall, but need to beat Sweden to have a chance of making the final four.

Beijing 2022 women’s curling semi-finals: Who is in contention for the final semi-final spots?

After seven days of competition and 11 sessions of curling, only Switzerland and Sweden have made it through to the Olympic semi-finals.

There are five teams fighting to join them; 2018 bronze medallists Japan (5-3), Korea (4-4), Canada (4-4), Britain (4-4) and China (4-5).

While few matches have followed the script exactly in this competition, Britain will be fancied to beat bottom team ROC and Canada to defeat second-bottom Denmark.

If Japan fail to beat Switzerland and Korea go down to Sweden, then the outcome would result in a Draw Shot Challenge (DSC) between Japan, Great Britain and Canada with two teams going through.

The DSC is the average distance of all the Individual Last Stone Draws (LSD), delivered by a team during the round-robin. The two worst results are discarded before calculating the average distance. The team with the lower DSC receives the higher ranking.

Should Japan and Canada or Britain lose, then the door opens for Korea and China to potentially snatch one of the two remaining spots.

There are 16 possible permutations and you can find a full list here.

Women’s curling at Beijing 2022 Olympics Day 7 results in full:

• Canada 7-6 United States of America
• Switzerland 8-4 Republic of Korea
• People's Republic of China 8-4 Great Britain
• Republic of Korea 8-7 Denmark
• Japan 10-7 United States of America
• Sweden 8-5 ROC
• Canada 11-9 People's Republic of China

You can find the round robin standings after today’s action here.

Schedule: Women's curling at Beijing 2022 Olympics Day 8

Here is the schedule for Thursday 17 February (all times local China Standard Time):

• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - Japan v Switzerland
• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - ROC v Great Britain
• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - Denmark v Canada
• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - Republic of Korea v Sweden