Belgium's Xavier Malisse has been suspended for four weeks by the men's ATP Tour for "aggravated behaviour" after being kicked out of the Nasdaq-100 tournament in March.

Malisse, ranked 36 in the world, was stripped of his prize money from the event, $10,350, and also fined $6,000. He has accepted his punishment.

An ATP spokesman said on Tuesday such a ban was "very rare".

Malisse was leading 6-3, 5-5 in Miami [ Images ] when he was defaulted from his match against Spain's David Ferrer on March 26.

The spokesman said Malisse had thrown a ball at the line judge, hitting her on the arm. He had also verbally abused an official, kicked over a chair and smashed his racquet.

The four-week ban starts from April 25 and Malisse will be able to play in the French Open [ Images ], the second Grand Slam of the season.

If he is fined for his conduct again this season, Malisse will be banned for a further four weeks.

At the time of the incident Malisse denied he had sworn.

"We were in a discussion about a ball and I looked at her and spoke about the ball mark, and she misunderstood," he said.

"I know what I said, and I got really mad afterwards because I think it's pretty wrong to get defaulted when you didn't do anything wrong.

"I'm definitely going to try to turn this around because I think it's just totally wrong what happened.

"I'm not going to back off. I'm not going to go down for something I didn't do."