LONDON: Banned former Wimbledon champion Martina Hingis was on Tuesday named as one of the contestants in a new series of a cult British television programme, Strictly Come Dancing.

Hingis will be joined in the BBC programme by retired champion jump jockey Richard Dunwoody, former boxer Joe Calzaghe, Olympic long jumper Jade Johnson and ex-cricketer Phil Tufnell.

Tufnell, the 43-year-old former England and Middlesex spinner is no stranger to reality TV, having emerged as king of the jungle in the 2003 series of I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here.

If he wins, he will be the third former cricketer to do so, after Mark Ramprakash and Darren Gough.

The 29-year-old Swiss-born Hingis, winner of five grand slam titles, is serving a two year ban for cocaine abuse after testing positive for the recreational drug at Wimbledon in 2007.

After the tests, Hingis declared she was "100 percent innocent", but the International Tennis Federation ruled against her and ordered her to repay nearly 80,000 pounds in prize money.