Former world tennis champion Bob Hewitt is back home with his family after serving just over half of his jail sentence for child rape, the weekly Sunday Times reported.
Hewitt, now 80, was convicted in March 2015 of raping two teenage tennis players and sexually assaulting a third in the 1980s and 1990s, while he was their coach.
Women who were already grandmothers testified at the trial that they had been in awe of the then international tennis sensation, who took advantage of them. One of them was just 12 when Hewitt raped her.
They said attempts to address the matter were whitewashed at the time because of his stature.
An earlier decision last year by the South African Correctional Supervision and Parole Board to grant Hewitt parole was overturned by a high-level review panel chaired by Judge Siraj Desai.
This was because Hewitt's victims were not granted the opportunity to make representations at the initial parole hearing.
Hewitt was sentenced to six years in prison in May 2015 but was jailed only in September 2016 after appeals at higher courts were unsuccessful.
He had served three-and-a-half years of his sentence when he was released on Friday.
The parole board had found him eligible for parole as he had a solid support system at home, according to the weekly. Conditions related his parole were not known.
Hewitt moved to South Africa in his early twenties from Australia rising in tennis circles to win nine Grand Slam titles, six mixed doubles titles and the Davis Cup in 1974.
Following his conviction, the International Tennis Hall of Fame expelled Hewitt from its ranks in April 2016.
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