AT the age of 32, new possibilities are opening up for Gavin Rumgay. Not only does Scotland's top table tennis exponent stand on the edge of history this weekend as he pursues a record-equalling 12th Scottish national title in Perth, but he is in the form of his life, entering the end of season play-offs in Switzerland with a 30: 2 match record which is better than any other player in the country.

But perhaps the biggest potential game changer of all is the fact that legendary sports impresario Barry Hearn is now taking an interest in the variant of the sport known as ping pong, which uses a sandpaper racket rather than one with sponge and rubber. The man who made his name in snooker during the 1980s and has transformed darts into a global phenomenon is now promising ping pong Premier Leagues, and summer trips to China with million-pound prize purses on the line. It all plays to the strengths of the versatile Rumgay, a man who used to show Andy Murray a thing or two on the tennis court when they were teenagers and knows his way around badminton courts and the golf course too.

Only 30% of Rumgay's earnings these days come from competitive play - the rest is generated from sponsors like BrewDog & Planet International and his racket sports and coaching business in Chingford - but like both Andy and Jamie Murray, the mature phase of the Scot's career promises to be its most productive. His competition at this weekend's event at Bell's Sports Centre is limited by the shoulder injury to Scottish No 2 Craig Howieson. "At the moment Euan Walker holds the record but I have won the last five and have got eleven in total, so this is the one this year which would equal the record," Rumgay told Herald Sport. "It would be good if I could manage it.

"I would say this is the best table tennis of my life," added the 32-year-old, who plays with his own branded racket, the 'Rumgay Reactor', and whose participation in Glasgow 2014 saw him famed for his 'wedgie' celebration. "I can only go with the results of these matches out in Switzerland, when you are playing guys who have qualified for the Olympics, good players who have played in the [German] Bundesliga and all the other good leagues."

For the record Rumgay ranks the Swiss league - where foreign stars like him, at UGS Chenois, mingle with the one member of your three-man team which must be local - behind Germany, France and Sweden in terms of prestige in Europe, with the Chinese Premier League ahead of that. But victory would take him into an inter-European competition modelled on the Champions League in football for the first time, not to mention keeping him under contract for the foreseeable future. This is a sport where players have an extended shelf life: most of the top 100 players with whom he will vying with for a place in this May's World Championships in Dusseldorf are in their 30s, and Olympic semi-finalist Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus is in his 40s.

While Rumgay is only currently British No 4 or No 5 behind Paul Drinkhall, his greatest opportunities lie in this increased fascination with ping pong. Ranked lowly enough that he must pre-qualify for the table tennis world championships, his official ping pong rating is as high as No 8 in the world, with only Andrew Baggaley ahead of him in a British context. Rumgay and Baggaley both reached the last 16 in the televised world championships of ping pong from Alexandra Palace in January while Baggaley took the title itself he two years previously.

"At the moment I am playing two sports - table tennis and ping pong," said Rumgay, who supports Glasgow charity Mary's Meals. "Ping pong is just a different sport, it is slower, more physical, the rallies last longer, while table tennis is explosive, fast, often winning on the strength of your serve. What you find is that guys who are very, very good at table tennis have only ever just played table tennis. While guys like me who are more versatile, a bit more talented across other sports, find it easier to adapt, and are pushing up the rankings in ping pong.

"The Championships has been running over the last three or four years but he [Hearn] wants to start running one of these Super Leagues, where every third or fourth week you go away," he added. "That would be really good, quite lucrative. You look at the standard across the board, and the guy from China who won it [2017 World Championship of ping pong winner Yan Weihao], I really don't think he was any better than anyone else. Table tennis could definitely be at the same level as snooker or darts. They are great sports but they are not any better than table tennis."

Rumgay will take centre stage again soon enough, with the Gold Coast next April set to be his third Commonwealth Games for Scotland. Even the ongoing uccesses of the Murray clan cannot colour a realism about how his career might have unfolded had he stuck with tennis instead.

"With my kind of personality, I think it would have been nice to be on Centre Court," he says. "But I imagine my tennis would have been similar to a lot of these guys in the past, like [Alex] Bogdanovic. They make it to Wimbledon and they maybe play excellently through one or two rounds. I used to be better than Jamie Baker, and he made it to British No 2, about 150-200 in the world, which is great but it is not enough. I look at it that way and think you know maybe it was the right decision. Maybe I could have made it to 100 in the world. Maybe. But it is difficult if you are not 6ft 3in. It is always a good question, that one."