Shocked: Maria Viviani finds it hard to believe she has been kicked out of the Australian Open. Credit:Michael Chammas It was a sudden, and heartbreaking, end to the tournament for Viviani, who had spent almost three weeks in Australia preparing for her maiden junior slam. "I'm still shocked. Yesterday was a very, very bad day for me because no one can feel good about this situation," the teenager told Fairfax Media. "It was hard for me. I was crying after for one hour and a half non-stop. I was crying so much. I know, and all the people who know me, they know I did nothing wrong. I'm OK with myself because I know I did nothing. This helped make me a little bit better." Under the grand slam rules, any player who is defaulted loses all ranking points earned at that tournament and may be fined up to the prizemoney won at the tournament in addition to any or all other fines levied with respect to the offending incident.

It was a costly exercise for Viviani to venture to Australia for the tournament, but she insists there was no malice in the ball-boy incident. "I wasn't angry, no. I was OK, I was enjoying it. It's my first slam, my first Australian Open," Viviani said. "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. "The thing that makes me angry is that I did a three-month pre-season for this tournament. We come from Italy – it's so far away. We did 24 hours flight. It's not just a game, it's a job. That's the thing that hurts me more." Former Italian women's professional Maria Elena Camerin, who works with the female Italian juniors, said she had never seen anything so ridiculous throughout her years in the sport.

She pleaded with the officials to see reason, but there was little she could do to prevent the teenager from bowing out of the tournament in the opening round after losing the first set 6-2 to Chinese opponent Xin Yu Wang. "I went to her (Viviani) and she screamed, 'Oh my God, oh my God, they want to disqualify me'," Camerin said. Loading "I tried to speak to the referee ... I would be first to say kick her out, but in this case the ball was not very hard. It was nothing. I've never seen something like this. I was on court and I said, 'C'mon, we are here from Italy and now she can't play for this kind of stupid thing'? "It is not cheap for her to come here all the way from Italy. We've been here from January 4. She was crying all day. It was very sad. She's a very nice girl. I just said to her, 'Shit happens'."