When it comes to Wimbledon and grass-court tennis there are three non-sporting words that spring to mind - strawberries, cream and Rolex.
Rolex is among them because the logo comes into view every time the scoreboard does, but it may now have a contender for that coveted positioning. Led by a tough, entrepreneurial businessman and backed by the formidable resources of luxury empire LVMH, Hublot is determined to use sports marketing as its ticket to the top.
'Our target customer is the fashion-conscious young entrepreneur who is interested in sports,' says Jean-Claude Biver, Hublot's Luxembourg-born chief executive and creative director. 'They love going to Formula One motor racing, Premier League football or sailing. This is our consumer and we need to catch him wherever he goes. I cannot catch him in his bank or his apartment but I can catch him when he goes to watch sports.'
Biver took charge of Hublot in 2004, when the company was close to bankruptcy. It was founded in 1980 by Carlo Crocco, who developed the first natural black rubber strap for luxury watches, a feature that has since become extremely fashionable among affluent young men. But Crocco was preoccupied with design and charity work, the consequence of which was that, by the time Biver arrived, the company's workforce had shrunk to 26 people.
'The business had been dying for a long time,' Biver says.
In 2004, Biver became a minority shareholder in Hublot and, in 2008, began negotiating to buy the company, before he was elbowed aside by LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault.