There are so many things in Australia that can kill you — if it’s not the deadly spiders or venomous snakes, it’s hurtling tennis balls. Being a ball boy at the Australian Open is frightful. This happened today:
Of course if that would have connected, Stan Wawrinka would have been disqualified from the tournament. He obviously hit the ball in anger (he had just gifted a point to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and the ball boy was just doing his job. He didn’t intentionally try to hit the kid, but that doesn’t matter.
Just ask Maria Vittoria Viviani, 17, who was booted from the Aussie Open Juniors for hitting a ball boy in the chest with the ball during her match on Monday with Xin Yu Wang.