We can safely assume that Fernando Verdasco is not going to be invited to open a school sports day at any time soon. The Spaniard demonstrated his attitude to young people with a particularly unsavoury outburst at the Shenzhen Open over the weekend. He was losing to Yoshihito Nishioka in the semi-final when he gestured to a ball-boy to hand him his towel. Despite the boy seemingly tearing about his duties with all appropriate haste, Verdasco was unhappy with the lad’s service. And berated him loudly and publicly.

His behaviour provoked a chorus of disdain. Rightly so. It was about as ugly a piece of bullying as you will witness on a tennis court: a millionaire professional verbally assaulting a young volunteer for being a touch tardy in servicing his needs. Nice.

That such an obnoxious display of entitlement came from Verdasco will come as little surprise to those in the know. Let’s just say he is renowned on the circuit as the sort of person you would rather your daughter didn’t date. Nick Kyrgios, himself not entirely hinged, recently called the Spaniard “a salty dude”.

But even though he is a particularly noxious character, it would be wrong to suggest that Verdasco is the first to humiliate a member of the ball crew. Novak Djokovic once gave a lad a public dressing down at the Miami Open. Adrian Mannarino was fined £9,000 for shoulder-charging a Wimbledon ball-boy, a crime he exacerbated by afterwards describing the Wimbledon ball-collecting team as “over-revered”.