My forearm is fully pressed into the table which gives me a few moments where my arm is completely still and it helps me get lower. A friend who is 2200 told me I should try it and it instantly made my serves lower and better because I am lower.
Sent from Ma Lin's Secret Underground Training Center with High Toss Serve Talk
There is much debate about the height above table one should impact the ball to result in a serve that barely clears the top of the net.
Some say you have to be REAL low, like the impact must happen lower than net height or even a few cm just above table height. I have seen a few players do this on certain serves and they can land it short and tight.
I have also seen some say the first bounce must be as close to net as possible. I have seen some players land a short serve with a first bounce 30 cm from the net.
Myself, I do not worry so much at what height I impact the ball on my short underspin serves. I impact it sometimes middle chest height and I can still get a tight serve from that. I aim for an area about a 30 cm by 30 cm circle just past half way to net, mostly about 10-15 cm past half way to net.
I use both a very high impact height and a relatively far away from net first bounce and I can still get a decently consistent for my level short tight side under spin serve in matches.
Look at my serves on my vid with Next Level or who ever I play in singles that you can see a vid of. You will see me impacting the ball a lot higher than you would expect for a short tight serve. I prolly did 50/50 or 60/40 short and long serve vs NL in that match.
A local club owner in my former city of Uijeungbu when I was in Korea took some pics (6-8 frames a second) of players serving or doing a certain stroke.
Here is the series he did of one of my serves.
http://cafe438.daum.net/_c21_/album...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz&datanum=60&edge=&listnum=15