A Watford pensioner who is a world champion ping pong player has been chosen to star in a new television advert.

Great-grandfather Geof Bax is the current veterans doubles world champion, and was singles world champion until a shock defeat in New Zealand last year.

The 83-year-old first picked up a paddle when he was working as an apprentice sheet metal worker aged 16, and played his first league match in March 1949.

Now, 66 years later, Mr Bax is featured in The National Lottery advert showing a group of young up-and-coming table tennis players how it’s done.

He said: “Making the film was great fun. I knew a few of the young people from tournaments we’ve played at. That’s the great thing about table tennis – it’s an intergenerational sport and it is the best sport for keeping your mind and body fit.”

In the advert Mr Bax, who is a member of the over 70s Veterans English Table Tennis Society, was pitted against young players from Greenhouse Sports, a National Lottery-funded London-based charity committed to using sport to help young people living in the inner city to realise their full potential.

Arabella Gilchrist, head of brand for The National Lottery, said: “The National Lottery creates millionaires every week but what a lot of people don’t know is that our players also raise a life-changing £34 million a week for amazing projects large and small all around the UK.

“This includes more than £37 million invested since 1994 in table tennis projects and facilities for elite players, grass roots groups and community clubs.

“Special thanks must go to National Lottery players for their life-changing vital contribution to supporting small and large projects across the nation. It’s their play that makes it possible.”

The match took place in the Victorian theatre at Alexandra Palace, London, where work on a major renovation programme funded by Heritage Lottery Fund has just begun.