Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi were disqualified from the women's doubles tournament at Roland Garros on Sunday after the Japanese accidentally hit a ball in an exchange of serve.
The incident occurred when the Japanese and Indonesian players led the second set 3-1, after losing the first to their rival pair, formed by the Czech Marie Bouzkova and the Spanish Sara Sorribes.
From the net, Kato gently threw a ball in the direction of the ball boy, on the opposite side of Court 14, to try to speed up the game, but ended up hitting it in the back of the head.
The 28-year-old immediately apologized to the young woman, who was crying and shaking about the situation.
At first, Kato received a warning, but eventually a supervisor disqualified the pair in the third round, after Bouzkova and Sorribes protested to the chair umpire.
"The warning was because the chair umpire didn't see that she was crying and that she was in pain," Bouzkova said.
"We told the supervisor that he should look at it more closely, because we saw that the young woman was crying and that the ball went straight towards her. It's not like it bounced or it's a slow ball," he added.
On Saturday, Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva was lucky not to be disqualified after forcefully sending a ball into the Suzanne Lenglen crowd during her match against American Coco Gauff.
"Immediately afterwards I thought it was very stupid of me, because it was not necessary to do that," admitted Andreeva, who ended up losing the duel.
At the 2020 US Open, Novak Djokovic was disqualified after clearing out of pure frustration a ball, which hit a line judge.
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