Skip Satsuki Fujisawa led Japan to a 7-5 win that sets up a showdown with defending champions Switzerland tomorrow afternoon.

It will follow the bronze medal game between Russia and hosts Canada, who lost 7-4 against Russia in this afternoon’s page 3-4 play-off.

Japan had last stone advantage against Russia and with them looking to score more than one point from an end, they elected to blank the first three ends.

Russian play eventually forced Fujisawa to settle for just one point in the fourth end, drawing her final stone inside Russian stones already there.

It was then Russia's turn to have last stone and they levelled the score in the fifth end when their skip Anna Sidorova drew her final stone into the house.

Japan made a breakthrough in the sixth end as Fujisawa played a hit-and-stay to score two points for a 3-1 lead.

However, Sidorova was able to draw her last stone of the seventh end into the house for two points to level the game again.

In the eighth end, Fujisawa was facing three Russian stones in the house when she came to play her last stone, but was able to hit-and-stay to score one point and establish a 4-3 lead.

Sidorova came up short with her last draw in the ninth end to give Japan a steal of one and extend their advantage to 5-3.

A tense 10th end saw Sidorova play a hit with her last stone that dislodged one Japanese stone and gave her a score of two points, tying the game and forcing an extra end.

Fujisawa had the last stone in the extra end and she used it to hit-out a Russian stone and score two points, thus sealing a historic victory. 

Japan suffered defeat at the hands of Switzerland in yesterday’s page 1-2 play-off game and face a tough task bettering that outcome tomorrow against a country bidding for a third consecutive world crown and fourth in five years. 

"It's the first time for me to be playing in the semi-final like this, with the fans and the cheering," said Fujisawa.

"It's all been fantastic.

"Yesterday we had trouble reading the ice, but today we just had a better time and were confident right from the beginning.

"Even when our opponents were making their shots we were still confident in the shots we were playing.

"All we can do tomorrow is to try to play again with the same confidence that we had today.

"We've been looking at social media to see how many people are supporting us back in Japan.

"It's great and wonderful, but if we look too much at that it'll make us nervous, so we just want to focus on having a good game and enjoy ourselves on the ice."