I've been out of the tennis loop for a while but had to check what's the fuss on Djokovic. I watched the video and it seems unintentional but it was reckless of him to hit the ball that high towards an official. He could have hit it low and let the ball roll over. The disqualification is warranted.
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This is such BS. He wasn't even angry. Have you seen the video? They have 10,000 cameras and they could find one with the ball hitting her face? come on now.
He turned around and lightly hit the ball to the back. His face was completely sincere when he saw her. Pure honest mistake. The Judge was such a drama queen with her All Star acting.
You might want to reread the rule provided by @JollyGood. Angry or not; Honest mistake or not, the act was reckless.
First US Grand Slam QF without Federer, Nadal, Muray, and Djoker?
I'm not disagreeing with the rule, it's a straight 100% disqualification, no argument there. It just the media and news portraying this wrong.
"Novak Djokovic's US Open meltdown"
"Angry Djokovic"
"ball smacked in rage"
"Djokovic crossing the line"
These are the headlines. But he wasn't even angry, he lightly hit the ball to the back and it happens to hit the line judge. I don't know why they are trying to make him a bad guy when this is purely unintentional and did not caused by anger. He later went online to defend the line judge knowing she will received threats and apologize for the 10th times.
-Pho
It is only afterwards that he defended the judge online. At first, he didn't really accept his disqualification given his 10 minute chat with the judge. For any other player, there wouldn't even be a discussion. Furthermore, he didn't went afterwards to the press conference, so I can understand these media headlines.