Scotland's Kelly Wood failed to make the play-offs at the European Curling Championships despite beating England's Kirsty Balfour 9-4.

It meant that Wood, last year's runner-up, finished the round-robin in Sweden with five wins and four defeats.

And Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and defending champions Sweden qualified for the play-offs after winning their final games.

Balfour won a tie-breaker with the Netherlands 7-6 to clinch eighth place.

The victory means England will remain in the top division at next season's championships in Aberdeen.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands face a best-of-three play-off against the B Division champions for the final berth in the 2009 World Championships.

The Czech Republic, skipped by Katerina Urbanova, finished bottom with only one victory and are relegated to next year's B Division.

Sweden's Anette Norberg defeated Diana Gaspari's rink 9-2 in her final game to deny the Italian a place in the play-offs.

Switzerland's Mirjam Ott beat the Netherlands 8-3 to finish with a 7-2 record along with Sweden, with the Swiss securing first place.

Norberg and Ott now come face-to-face, with the winner going directly into the final.

The loser will take on the winner of the play-off between Denmark and Germany.

Meanwhile, David Murdoch's Scotland rink will face Switzerland in the first round play-off stage of the men's event.

Murdoch triumphed 13-2 against Ireland's David Smith to follow up an earlier 6-5 victory over France.

Should the defending champions defeat the Swiss, they will meet Germany or Norway for a place in the final.

Murdoch said: "We won this twice, we've won silver, we've won bronze. We're here to win and anything else is frankly unacceptable."

Germany's Andy Kapp topped the round-robin after a final-game 7-5 win over Denmark.

Norway's Thomas Ulsrud was second after beating Sweden 7-6, ending with the same 7-2 record as the Germans and Scots.

Switzerland's Stefan Karnusian beat Spain 14-4 to finish with six wins in fourth.

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