You don't have to be a tennis obsessive from Mumbai, or a racket-head from the Swiss cantons, to be intrigued by the new partnership between Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis, which will feature on the Wimbledon grass this summer. 

So expect a surge of interest in the women's doubles tournament at the All England Club this summer, and not just from armchair audiences in India and Switzerland. For a tennis fan of any nationality or allegiance, both of these players are great stories, with this a collaboration between the first Indian woman to hold the world No. 1 ranking for singles or doubles, and a thirty-something Swiss who as a teenager was extraordinarily successful on the doubles court at Wimbledon (as well as on the singles court). 

Hingis was just 15 years old when she won the 1996 Wimbledon women's doubles title alongside Helen Sukova, which made her the youngest champion in that event in the history of the tournament, which is a record she still holds; that was a preview to her singles triumph the following summer with her victory in the 1997 final making her the youngest champion since the nineteenth century. As Hingis also took the 1998 Wimbledon doubles title in partnership with Jana Novotna, this summer's Championships will see her attempting to score the trophy for a third time, and with three different partners. 

To date, Mirza's best run at the grass-court Grand Slam came in 2011 when she made the semi-finals in the company of Russia's Elena Vesnina. But you can be sure that Mirza and Hingis are going to be a force at Wimbledon this summer. Just consider their results from their first three tournaments together - they won all three of them, on the hard courts of Indian Wells and Miami, and then on the clay of Charleston, with that last victory pushing Mirza to the top of the rankings. "When you start off as a child playing tennis, you dream of being No. 1 in the world. It's a dream for every person and very few get there," Mirza said. "I feel extremely honoured to be No. 1; it's something that I've worked for all my life. I hope this makes girls in India believe that anything is possible; we can achieve anything we want if we put our mind and body to it." 

Addressing her fan-base, Mirza thanked those who hadn't believed in her, as well as those who had. "I have so many people to thank but, first and foremost, I want to thank God. I feel so, so blessed. I want to thank my family, my loved one, friends, my coaches over the years, my partners and you guys, who believed in me and supported me all these years. This is a dream come true and I dedicate this back to you guys. I also want to thank the people who didn't believe in me - you just pushed me harder and made me more determined to fulfill my dream." 

Already, after such a short time together, Mirza and Hingis lead the qualification race for the WTA's season-ending tournament, the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. How will they fare at the European Grand Slams this summer? When Mirza won the mixed doubles title at the 2009 Australian Open, a tournament she played with Mahesh Bhupathi, she became the first Indian woman to win a major. Will the French Open see her become the first Indian woman to win a women's doubles Grand Slam? Or will that breakthrough come at Wimbledon?