Beijing 2022 women's semi-finals curling round-up: Japan and Great Britain through to Olympic final

Japan and Great Britain are through to the Beijing 2022 women’s curling finals after recording semi-final wins on Friday evening (18 February).

Team GB survived a breathless, topsy-turvy clash with defending Olympic champions Sweden to come out on top 12-11 in an extra-end thriller.

Their victory guarantees Britain two medals at the Games after Bruce Mouat's rink reached the men's final on Thursday.

In a rematch of their semi-final at PyeongChang 2018, Team GB got off to the worst possible start.

Cumulative errors enabled Sweden to set up a high-scoring end, and when skip Eve Muirhead’s final shot came up short of the house, Anna Hasselborg made a simple draw to score four in the opening end.

But Britain responded immediately as Hasselborg’s double take-out attempt went awry leaving her shooter and two British stones sitting in the house.

And Muirhead delivered a perfect take-out to score a triple for her team and reduce the deficit to one.

Still down 5-4, Britain looked in trouble in the fifth end but another failed double take-out attempt by Hasselborg left Britain lying three.

Despite evading the guard erected by Muirhead's final stone, Hasselborg’s draw with the hammer came up short and handed Britain a steal of one to level the scores at 5-5 going into the break.

After exchanging two-point ends, the score was once again tied at 7-7.

The eighth saw a very crowded house leaving Hasselborg and Muirhead with plenty to chew on at the business end of the eighth.

After some deliberation with their coach, Sweden opted to peel the guard forcing Muirhead into a big final draw.

That then left Hasselborg with a chance to promote her own stones into the busy button with all sorts of ricochets and outcomes possible. In the end,