New Zealand remain in medal contention at the world curling championships in Basel, Switzerland, but were left lamenting dropping their last game of the day against a US outfit near the bottom of the leaderboard.
The Kiwi quartet beat Switzerland 9-6 earlier in the day to give them their fifthvictory of the event, equalling New Zealand's best-ever performance at a world championships.
But they were well beaten 10-4 by the US, who went into the match with only two wins from their eight matches. The game turned in the fifth end, when US skip Heath McCormick had a hit to score four points and give his side a 6-3 lead and they took control from there.
New Zealand are realistic about their chances, however.
Skip Peter de Boer, speaking after their win over Switzerland, said: "We've got some nice momentum going. We ground that out, we were pretty ugly in a couple of ends and very fortunate in the fourth when their stone picked up, which gave us the chance of three.
"This keeps us right in the middle but our ultimate goal is gaining Olympic qualification points. A top-half finish here maybe gets us a toe on the plane to the Olympics. We just need to continue it and, who knows?"
Teams competing at the world championship earn Olympic qualifying points for their nations and, based on cumulative points earned for their finishes at the 2012 and 2013 men's championships, the top seven countries (host Russia receives an automatic entry), will compete at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
