So is Andy Murray a feminist icon now?

When Andy Murray made a point of praising his coach Amelie Mauresmo for a second time, tennis journalist Catherine Whitaker says she "struggled not to give him a hug".

Much was made of Murray's decision to appoint a female coach last June. It was called "brave", "inventive", and he was labelled a "maverick", a "pioneer".

A month later, when he lost in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon it was branded a "questionable" move.

And when he suffered a heavy defeat to Roger Federer at the ATP World Tour finals in November, many eyes immediately turned to Mauresmo - must be her fault.

All of these assessments were laced with misogyny, of course, as so much discussion relating to women's sport still sadly is.

Unfortunately we still live in a world where it is entirely acceptable to question someone's suitability for a job on the basis of their gender, particularly on the sports field, where women only receive a fraction of the respect afforded to their male counterparts.

Who better to banish this particular brand of misogyny than Andy Murray himself?

And that's exactly what he did on Thursday after barnstorming his way into the Australian Open final.

While being interviewed live on court, he told everyone watching that he wanted to thank his coach, Amelie Mauresmo, for her bravery in making the decision to take the role.

He's right. It was brave. It was brave to put herself in the firing line of the all too predictable suggestions that a female is not qualified to coach a male player.

"My opinion is that women can coach equally as well as men," he told me in his post match interview for Tennis Australia.

"When I lost to Federer at the end of last year everyone was saying she was useless and it was her fault and in my opinion that wasn't the case at all.

"She was number one in the world at what she did. She has so many qualities; a great work ethic, a great understanding of the game.

"So I'm happy I'm playing good tennis and she has contributed massively to what's happened to me over the past few weeks."

I had to fight the urge to give him a hug.

Of course, many areas of the media still found room for a sexist take on event - leading with a story about Murray's fiancée swearing under her breath in the player's box.

Had that been a man swearing in the player box of one of the leading female players, would it have been given so much coverage? I doubt it.

But then, there's only so much one man can do. So good on you, Andy. You're a credit to yourself and to your sport.

Catherine Whitaker is co-host of the Tennis Podcast.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube