Honestly, as someone who has watched a lot of tennis in my lifetime going back to Connors and McEnroe, I'm surprised it has taken so long for this to happen. It wasn't too unusual for McEnroe back in the day to hit a ball hard into the backstop between points. It was usually just out of frustration at himself, not even the linesmen. He never even got a warning for it because the rule was that if he was just doing it out of frustration, then it was okay to do. But it always struck me as dangerous for players to do that because linesmen and ball boys were back there. Moreover, it's always a judgement call by the umpire in determining if a player is acting out of anger at himself or being abusive to the officials. McEnroe often argued with the Umpire after being penalized that he wasn't even reacting to the officials. At times he was probably right.
In this case, it sounds like the referee was sticking by the letter of the law. The linesman (or woman?) couldn't continue and apparently by rule that defaults the tennis player. I'm not sure if its right. But technically speaking the referee's hands were tied.