GB keep up winning ways

Great Britain's Deborah Knox at full stretch

By BBC Sport Online's Mike Haggerty in Salt Lake City

Click here for women's draw four results

Britain's women curlers gained their third round-robin victory out of four with a workmanlike 8-5 win over Russia.

The victory keeps Rhona Martin team's team in a semi-final qualifying position, sharing third place with Germany behind undefeated Canada and Switzerland.

"The tough road starts now - there's a long way to go and a lot of tough teams out there

GB skipper Rhona Martin

The British team controlled the game from the start, taking a single shot in the first end with last stone advantage and then two singles steals in the next two ends for a 3-0 lead.

Russia scored one in the fourth and then the teams swapped singles again in the next two ends to give Britain a 4-2 lead after six ends.

Martin then pulled further ahead, scoring a two in the seventh end.

Although Russia managed another single in the eighth, the British quartet scored another two in the ninth to kill off the game.

This was despite having Martin's first stone taken off the ice for a hog-line offence when she held onto her delivery past the legal line.

Control

With the game now beyond them, Russia scored two in the last end for a final score of 8-5 to Britain.

"Once we got the hang of the ice - which is getting straighter with every game - we kept in control," said Martin afterwards.

"It would have been quite easy for us to lose a couple of shots mind way through the game, but we played well."

Britain have now played and beaten all three teams at the bottom of the ranking.

The British women now go into a tough sequence of games, beginning with table-toppers Canada.

"The tough road starts now," conceded Martin. "There's a long way to go and a lot of tough teams out there.

"It doesn't matter what nation we're playing, it's another four curlers.

"We'll see what they've got to throw at us, and we'll throw back at them".

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Women's draw four results:

Norway 10-5 Germany
Great Britain 8-5 Russia
Denmark 9-4 United States
Switzerland 8-7 Japan

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