Malin Pettersson is a 14-time Swedish National Champion in table tennis. She’s also an excellent liar.

“This is pretty good for your first time!” she tells me as we volley balls back and forth. No one keeps score, but I’d say the game ends around 45-0.

Pettersson is the grand opening manager for SPIN, a fancy new ping-pong club downtown. It is ninth location for the brand, which was co-founded by one Susan Sarandon (remember when Susan Sarandon was really into ping-pong for a while?) and the first in D.C. In addition to tables that are open for walk-in games, a private space for parties, and a menu of bar food and cocktails, the club will also have eight professional players, including Pettersson, on staff to offer ping-pong pointers to patrons a few days a week.

Before the first serve, Pettersson gives me the same tips she usually gives to newbies like myself. “The right way to hold the paddle is like you’re shaking its hand,” she says, showing me how she grips it with her forefinger extended on the back of the paddle. You stand about an arm’s length away from the table, she says, and position your feet parallel to the edge.

There are no similar pointers for the space’s secondary sport: Instagramming. The 12,000-square-foot space is packed with plush, jewel-toned seating, neon-dipped portraits, and an all-blue room that makes for a dramatic backdrop. Also in the works is a bathtub full of ping-pong balls—a feature at each SPIN location, for some reason—that welcomes social media photographers to hop in.

Since it was founded in 2009 by Sarandon, Jonathan Bricklin, and Franck Raharinosy in New York City, SPIN has grown to eight locations across the United States, and one location in Toronto. Other outposts have attracted celebrities and closet ping-pong enthusiasts, including Justin Bieber, Prince, Jimmy Fallon, and Kim Kardashian.

Posting on social media is free, but the ping-pong is not: It’s $9 per person, per hour to reserve one of the 12 tables on most days, and $9 to play all day on Sundays. You can reserve tables in advance on weekends. Pettersson and her fellow experts will play exhibition games on Fridays, and they will be walking around offering help—and not just with ping-pong.

“We can always see when there’s a first date happening,” Pettersson says. “Our staff is good about coming in and facilitating that.”

There’s full service at each ping-pong table while you play, and at the horseshoe-shaped bar at the center of the space. Two cocktails are bottled—harder for an errant ping-pong ball to plop into a bottle than a glass, Pettersson explains—including a version of D.C.’s unofficial cocktail, the rickey. Bar fare includes a burger with a mac and cheese bun, plus sliders, flatbreads, and a fried chicken sandwich.

Should all of Pettersson’s lessons pay off, there’s a weekly ping-pong league that’s now accepting signups, plus two bars for private parties.

SPIN is located at 1332 F St. NW, and has its soft opening Dec. 18. Operating hours through the end of 2018 are Mondays-Thursdays 5 p.m.-9 p.m., Fridays-Saturdays 4 p.m.-1 a.m., Sundays noon-5 p.m. Closed December 24-25. Grand opening plans are in the works for January.

This story has been updated with additional background about the founding of SPIN and with updated soft opening hours.