2 min readUpdated: Aug 17, 2026 04:33 PM IST
Lakshya Sen’s first match is still 24 hours away, but the behind-the-back wristy flick has made its first appearance at Delhi’s Badminton World Championships. A goodly crowd watched Canadian women’s doubles shuttler Johnna Rymes pull off an eye-popping behind the back wrist snapping flick that landed on the opponent’s court much to the glee of her partner Eyota Kwan.
The Canadians who met at a Edmonton club, following their respective older brothers into the sport, ended up getting wiped 21-15, 10-21, 21-6 in the Round 1 match against Vietnamese Thi Dieu Ly Tham and Pham Thi Khahn. But Rymes found a reason to garner applause in the 4th match on Court 4, when she bobbed and torqued and sent an agile return that had enough snap in it to surprisingly land on the opposite court for a winner.
“Sometimes you swing at anything and it comes off. I turned around and frankly didn’t expect it to go far,” Rymes said later. The behind-the-back is rarely ever trained for dedicatedly. “I’ll call it the ‘Due luck’ or ‘shank it back’ shot,” she added.
Rymes comes from Devon, a hyper planned oil exploration town and watched her father play the sport, while Kwan hails from Edmonton-proper. The sport has seen an explosion after the success of Victor Lai, who medalled at the last World’s and won a Super 1000 recently.
“The sport is growing a lot because of Victor. “We played a local tournament where even the umpires were distracted by watching his semifinals at Indonesia on their devices,” Rymes recalls with a laugh.
The eye-popping stroke, made famous in India when Sen unleashed it at the Olympics non chalantly, needs incredible reflexes and a rubbery strong wrist.
It’s gotten more common in badminton, though not to the extent of being seen as ordinary. It still gets a whoop and gasp when it gets a return back. Playing MR Arjun and Hariharan Amsakarunan, Irishmen Guildea-Reynolds also got a couple of audacious returns from folded arms, though they ended up spraying the final smash.
