Scotland concluded the World Curling Championship in wretched fashion by losing to Italy in the bronze-medal match.
The defending champions suffered a “frustrating” semi-final defeat by Canada on Saturday and leave Switzerland without even the consolation of a podium place.
Bruce Mouat’s rink were 6-3 up going into the 10th end but missed a draw shot to win, allowing Italy’s world ranked number rink skipped by Joel Retornaz to force an extra end.
And, despite having the hammer, second ranked Scotland failed to take advantage and fell to a 7-6 defeat.
“We’re used to coming to Championships and playing well in the playoff stages,” Mouat said. “I feel like we did play well, but there were just a few misses from myself.
“We’re finding this pretty tough. We’re proud to have got to another semi-final of a Championship, but this one’s going to sting for a while.
“Hopefully we can use this to drive ourselves forward for the next couple of years and get back to the Olympics.”
Olympic champions Sweden secured a seventh world title for skip Niklas Edin, beating 2017 world champion Brad Gushue’s Canadians 6-5 in the gold-medal match.
Scotland’s Olympic silver medallists Bruce Mouat, Hammy McMillan, Grant Hardie and Bobby Lammie already have a full set of world medals, with last year’s gold coming after a second-place finish in 2021 and bronze on their debut in 2018.
