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, 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."

• Complete tennis coverage
• All you want to know about Sania Mirza