From Greg Letts,
Your Guide to Table Tennis / Ping-Pong.
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The concept of frequently using a double bounce serve (where the ball would bounce twice on the opponent's side if left alone) is one of the most important in serving. Watch videos of the pros and notice just how often they are trying to do this on their own serves. Bear in mind that the second bounce should be somewhere close to within six inches of the end line - shorter serves or more bounces are not better!

Reasons for the popularity of this serve include:

• It's difficult to attack with a powerful return. Because the ball is not going over the end of the table, it is hard for the opponent to use his natural loop stroke to attack. At best he may be able to use a modified stroke that barely brushes the ball in order to topspin, but this will have a lot less power than a normal loop. More often, he will be forced to push or flick the return from over the table, which brings us to the next point.

• Because most of your opponent's returns are made from over the table, the double bounce serve makes him perform it from as far away from the net as possible.

The following pages will show the effects of performing a good double bounce serve.