Switzerland Drops United States of America 7-4 In Women's Curling!

For 3 ends, skip Erika Brown and the American women fought off Switzerland's aggressive use of the hammer, the final stone thrown in each frame.

Once the Swiss took advantage, landing three stones in the fourth end to overcome an early 2-0 USA lead, this floodgates opened. The Switzerland would add another two points in the fifth end and not look back, winning 7-4 Monday as well as handing the USA an opening loss in the round-robin portion of the Sochi Games.

Erika Brown and her teammates may take some solace in the fact that the Swiss played nearly a perfect game after their uneven start.

Paced by skip Mirjam Ott, The Switzerland was aggressive in its ownership of the house, the target range at the end of the lane; in at least four ends, the Swiss wrestled away control over the last three stones to clean out USA's chances at claiming a point.

Switzerland's approach was upon full display in the eighth end, when Ott threaded her toss between two USA stones — lined up outside the target area as would-be roadblocks — and knocked another USA pair out of the house to give her team a 7-3 lead.

If dropping this starting match marks a great inauspicious Olympic debut, the USA had no misconceptions about running the table through the round-robin stage.

'We know we're not going to run the field and go 9-0 in the round robin,' trainer Bill Todhunter said Sunday that. 'There's going to be a hiccup in there, or 2. It is just going to be a matter of getting to the playoffs and then it's win one of two games and you are a medalist. You win the 1st one, you have got a really nice piece of hardware.'

Said coach Derek Brown,'Actually, the round-robin stage's about qualifying for the medal rounds. So you may lose a couple games in this round robin and absolutely get in the tournament.'

A record of 6-3 in this round robin is likely good enough to get into the tournament stage, Brown estimated.

'You know, gold medals have been won from 5-4,' this individual said that.' Also, 5-4 may not exactly qualify. So I think seven's a definite. Seven you are in a guaranteed semi-final, I'd say.'

The Americans' next match comes Tuesday against Russia, which opened it's tournament with the 7-4 loss to Great Britain before rebounding to defeat Denmark 7-4. If this opening result was the fairly disappointing one for the Anna Sidarova-led Russians, which have designs upon claiming a medal on their house turf, bouncing back to beat the Denmark prevented a potentially crippling 0-2 begin.

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