Player kicked out of AO for a harmless mistake

This is harsh. So harsh. A classic rule-book-strangling-all-forms-of-common-sense situation.

At the Junior Australian Open on Monday, an umpire took the controversial decision of defaulting 17-year-old Maria Vittoria Viviani for "hitting a ball boy" with a tennis ball. That makes it sound worse than it is, though. Here's the video.

Like I said, harsh. It was a momentary outburst after losing the first set and it was hardly an outburst at all. She softly hit the ball over to the side without looking, and the second she sees it hit an unsuspecting ball boy running by, she immediately apologizes. The ball boy wasn't even hurt, she told the Sydney Morning Herald:

"I was enjoying the game. The kid was moving and I hit him. I said sorry immediately because I saw him but he was OK.

"He was standing with the balls in his hands waiting for the match to start again."

Many on social media was livid after the DQ and Viviani left the court in tears, but none of that mattered. The rule stipulates that if you hit a ball at a ball person, you get disqualified. The umpire may have been following the letter of the law here, but the spirit of it was tossed by the wayside.