It bodes well for Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds that they conquered the world and Olympic champions to seal their spot at the top of the curling mixed doubles rankings.
The duo swept Italy's Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner aside 9-6 in a convincing end to their round robin exploits and secured themselves as the number one team with eight wins from nine games in Cortina.
Mouat and Dodds were handed their first defeat by the hands of Switzerland on Sunday afternoon in a tense 7-6 battle.
Italy do not just have eyes thrust upon them as the host country, but as reigning Olympic and world champions, the pressure is a large as the Dolomites they are playing at the foot of.
And for Constantini, it also means playing in the town she grew up in, born and raised in Cortina d'Ampezzo herself.
The Italian duo won every game on their way to Olympic and world gold but even with the crowd on their side, Mouat and Dodds silenced the Italian roars on Sunday night.
"That was an amazing game tonight," said Dodds. “The crowd was amazing for tonight, even if they weren’t cheering for us a lot of the time.
"We’ve waited a long time to play in a crowd like this, Beijing was a Covid Games so we didn’t experience it. This has been a long time coming and we are absolutely loving it."
It is no surprise that the pair are enjoying themselves despite the relentless schedule, with the pair now afforded a rare morning off before Monday’s semi-final at 4.05pm UK time.
Their opponents are still to be decided, with a final set of round robin fixtures slated for Monday morning but Mouat is in a mood that means no side will strike fear into them.
“We have been working really hard, we played three events this year and won two of them, got to the final of the other one,” he said. "We know that we are a tough team to beat, we have won the world championships, won silver at the worlds last year. We are a tough team.
“It’s what we’ve been working on for a long time. There are a lot of people to thank who got us here. "We’re just very pleased to be in the semi-finals and hopeful we can start off the game tomorrow well."
Victory means that Mouat and Dodds will hold the hammer advantage going into the play-offs, a tactic so crucial in the shorter and faster paced format of mixed doubles that it can control the entire game.
They are also battle-hardened from events four years ago in Beijing’s Ice Cube, where they were beaten by Norway and then Sweden in the play-offs to miss out on a medal entirely.
"We are exactly where we want to be going into the semi-finals at the top of the table and we know that we just need to rest and recover now before tomorrow's final," said Dodds.
"We take confidence from it and we want to play with the hammer which we had been saying all week," added Mouat.
"I now want to play Switzerland again because we can beat them this time. But whoever we get, we will be happy and we'll be playing well tomorrow."
Sportsbeat 2026