MELBOURNE, Jan 23: The women competing at the Australian Open have been behaving this week but plenty of men haven’t, with 18 out of a total of 19 fines dished out so far.

Only one female player has fallen foul of officialdom, with all the fines but one so far copped by the men.

Nicole Vaidisova became the first woman to be fined on Friday at this year’s Australian Open.

The Czech received a $2,000 penalty from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) for failing to appear at a news conference after her 6-2, 6-1 first-round loss to Severine Bernard of France.

The former world number seven has slipped down the rankings after a poor 2008 and is now outside the top 50.

Russian Dmitry Tursunov has been clobbered by the heaviest fines with the 29th seed not seeing the funny side of a first-round exit against Italian Flavio Cipolla. Tursunov was fined $2,500 for verbal abuse and $500 for racquet abuse.

Croat Roko Karanusic’s wallet is a $1,000 lighter after letting slip an audible obscenity.

Local favourite Lleyton Hewitt was also among the offenders, docked $1,500 for verbal abuse during his loss to Chilean 13th seed Fernando Gonzalez.

Other players misbehaving include Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, Serb Janko Tipsarevic, and Argentina’s David Nalbandian.—Agencies