For women, the fashion and grunting when returning the ball have caused the most controversy in recent years.

The first instance of fashion faux pas was Gertrude Moran. Known as Gorgeous Gussie, she was the first player to wear a skirt so short you could see her underwear. This was in 1949 at the All England Club or Wimbledon. The tournament committee accused Gussie of bringing “vulgarity and sin into tennis”.

Unfortunately, fashion continues to dominate headlines when it comes to women’s tennis. One headline on Tuesday read: Serena Williams struts her stuff in a new outfit at Australian Open.

This was the first article to appear when searching for Williams in Google. Not the fact that she won her match.

However, the real “vulgarity” facing tennis at the moment is the attitude of some Australian tennis players.

Wearing a light blue hooded jumper, Bernard Tomic used the press conference following his first-round loss to slam one of Australia’s favourite sons, Lleyton Hewitt.

Sounding like a petulant child, Tomic said “no one likes him any more, he is doing the wrong thing, he is playing Davis Cup” and that Hewitt “used to hate Tennis Australia, it’s weird and now he loves them”.

Not only did Tomic repeat hearsay (because he hasn’t played Davis Cup for 12 months), but his comments also dragged fellow Australian players Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis into a fight they probably didn’t want to enter particularly on the same day as their own matches.

Hewitt laughed off the comments and rightfully said the success of Australians on day one of the grand slam was overshadowed by Tomic’s outburst. 

Tomic has proven over the years he can talk the talk, but he most definitely can’t walk the walk.  His comments are the true sin of a great sport.