SOCHI, Russia – The United States saw its chances of advancing in women's curling nearly vanish Wednesday, after falling to 0-4 in the Sochi Olympics with a 7-4 loss to China.

Erika Brown's rink likely will need to win all five of its remaining round-robin games to stand a chance of reaching the semifinals.

"We are going to stay upbeat whatever happens," Brown said. "We worked really hard to be here. We are doing our best out there and we'll keep fighting."

The United States nearly forced overtime, but Chinese skip Wang Bingyu made a draw to the button to win the game.

"Anything is still possible here. You don't have to be the hottest team at the beginning of the week," said Team USA's Ann Swisshelm. "You need to be the hottest at the end."

Canada beat Great Britain 9-6 when an aggressive move by British skip Eve Muirhead proved costly. With the clock running down and her team behind 8-6, Muirhead could have played an easy draw to the button with her last stone to take a tense game to an extra end at 8-8.

Instead, she gambled on removing three tightly bunched Canadian rocks to pick up three points to victory. The move backfired, and Canada clinched a victory to improve to 3-0.

"It was a gamble but ... that's the skip," Muirhead said.

Sweden beat South Korea 7-4 and Japan beat Russia 8-4.

NEWS SERVICES