Italian junior disqualified for hitting ball kid

A 17-year-old Italian junior was disqualified from her first-round match in the Australian Open girls' competition after she caught a ball kid with a stray ball.

Maria Vittoria Viviani had just lost the first set 2-6 to Chinese opponent Xin Yu Wang after the Italian hit the ball long.

The youngster leaned back after realising she had coughed up the set before pulling the last ball out of her pocket.

Viviani sliced it along the ground and had barely finished her follow-through when she put her hand up to apologise to a ball kid.

Viviani hit her last ball away after losing the first set. Pic: Channel 7

While the hit itself was not caught on camera on court 13, journalists at the scene said the ball only lightly hit the child on the chest.

That was enough for the umpire to decide to disqualify Viviani, who was said to have left in tears.

A similar incident occured in Auckland last year when Jelena Ostapenko threw her racquet and hit a ballboy, but was lucky not to be disqualified:

The penalty seems slightly harsh considering what other ball kids have had to deal with in recent days.

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