Involved in a heated battle with Canada yesterday, in which Sweden claimed their opponents had cheated, the Swedes fell to a third loss in as many matches and sat at the bottom of the 10-team standings.
Opponents China had also lost three from three so far, and neither side could afford another loss to maintain realistic Semi-final hopes.
Sweden got off to a bright start with the hammer in the first end, as a mistake from the Chinese skip allowed Niklas Edin to roll his final stone into the middle of the house and put his side 2-0 up.
China pulled one back in the second end, and after a blank in the third, Sweden managed to retake the two-point advantage in the fourth end. The trading points continued, as China cut the gap to 3-2 in the fifth, before Edin elected to blank the sixth and keep the hammer for end seven.
That could have backfired, with China lying two ahead of the final Swedish stone, but excellent work from the Swedish team worked it into the centre to give Sweden a 4-2 advantage with three ends left.
China's skip Xu Xiaoming could only cut the gap by one in the eighth end, then a pivotal ninth end for Sweden saw Edin draw his final stone into the centre to take another two points, putting Sweden 6-3 up ahead of the final end, albeit handing the hammer to China.
The Swedes kept control of the 10th end with great defensive curling, allowing China to take just one back and win the match, 6-4, with a 95% accuracy across the match. They move up to eighth, with plenty of work still to do, and next up they take on United States tomorrow (15th).
