Arsenal's trip to Beijing all fun and games as stars play table tennis in the team hotel ahead of Chelsea clash

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Arsenal's stars may be gearing up to beat Chelsea in Saturday's pre-season friendly at the Bird's Nest but their players seem pretty keen on defeating each other, at least at table tennis.

Away on business, cooped up in team hotels and a long way from their families, the challenge professional footballers have on tour has always been finding ways to spend time between training and playing.

Barcelona's stars famously play Ludo, others golf and video games are ever popular but the Gunners squad have taken to table tennis.

Nacho Monreal celebrates beating Arsenal team-mate Aaron Ramsey at table-tennis

The Arsenal players took some time out of their pre-season schedule for leisure activities

Granit Xhaha and Francis Coquelin also got themselves involved in the ping pong action

Back-up keeper Emiliano Martinez shows some good form with a table tennis bat in his hand

It is a good choice considering their current destination. Table tennis is almost the national sport of China, the country have won every possible gold medal in the sport at the last three Olympics.

Aaron Ramsey, Nacho Monreal, Granit Xhaka, Emiliano Martinez and Francis Coquelin were all pictured in ping pong action at the Arsenal team hotel.

With professional sportsman it was never going to be a nice friendly game and the pictures show Monreal getting up close and personal after his win over Ramsey.

According to Arsenal's Instagram the battle between Ramsey and Monreal 'got pretty heated'

The Spaniard clearly enjoyed beating Ramsey, giving the thumbs up after securing victory

Ramsey looks like a picture of concentration as he tries to avoid defeat by Monreal

Joe Willock and Cohen Bramall clearly aren't that entertained by Xhaka and Coquelin's game

The Swiss midfielder keep his eye on the ball as he takes on Coquelin at the team hotel

The Arsenal Instagram account revealed more in their picture of the moment, captioning it: 'It got pretty heated between Rambo and Nacho at the ping-pong table earlier on'.

Xhaka, who was pictured taking on Coquelin, insists he is not taking his eye off the ball during down time, captioning his own social media post of the incident: 'It's time for a bit of [table tennis emoji] before it goes back to the [football emoji]'.

The Arsenal players return to what they do best on Saturday when face London rivals Chelsea some 5,000 miles from home.