Great Britain’s men’s curling team continued their up and down start to the Winter Olympics with a loss and a defeat on Thursday.. David Murdoch’s team lost narrowly to Switzerland in Vancouver to leave their hopes of progression diminished but bounced back with a win over Denmark.

Murdoch, Ewan MacDonald, Pete Smith and Euan Byers lost their opening match against Sweden on Tuesday but bounced back to beat France the following day. The 4-3 loss to Switzerland meant the team couldn’t afford any more slip-ups if they were to progress from the round-robin stage. Victory over Denmark was essential with only five matches remaining after the tie but Great Britain came through 9-6 and Murdoch was a relieved figure.

"You've got to enjoy the rollercoaster sometimes, don't you?" team skip Murdoch joked.

"It's always going to be tough out there and everybody's playing well. There's a few things we need to tighten up on and come out fresh on Saturday."

The team don’t play on Friday but face a tough pair of matches on Saturday that will have a major bearing on whether they make the knockout stage. First up is a must-win match against China, followed by host nation Canada, who are unbeaten so far in the Games.

"We can't lose that game to China so we need to make sure we win that one first,” Murdoch added. "We won't be thinking about Canada until we step on the ice."

The women’s team enjoyed greater success as Eve Muirhead and her team-mates swept aside Russia to take their second win of the games. Russia were soundly beaten in an eight-end, 10-3 win.

The team had beaten China in their opening match but fallen to defeat against Sweden in their second round-robin tie. After a poor start in that match, Great Britain raced into a lead against the Russians with Muirhead and Lockhart scoring in the first end to go 2-0 in front.

Kelly Wood left the rink feeling unwell to reduce GB to a trio but this did not halt their progress and they were 5-0 ahead after the second end. Russia, who had beaten Scotland in the European Championships, pulled a point back in the third before Annie laird came in to replace Wood and respore the team to a full complement of players.

Russia looked like pulling back another point in the fifth but Muirhead showed her quality with the hammer once again to take out their stone and leave Britain with two more points and a 7-2 halfway lead. Muirhead took out a Russian stone in the next end to leave four British stones in scoring position and Ludmila Privivkova could only remove two with the hammer, putting Britain 9-2 ahead and on the verge of victory.

Though Russia got another point in the seventh and were close to further inroads in the eighth but their two stones in scoring positions were removed by Muirhead’s hammer and the match was conceded.

"We're on our way, we're rolling and working well as a unit of four,” Muirhead said after the match.

"Yesterday we played two tough opponents, the world champions (China) and the Olympic champions (Sweden). We were 1-1 yesterday and to get a win today was even better.

"I just hope our form holds on when we move on to tomorrow."