Tennis coach faces 'sex' trial
April 5, 2004

AN INTERNATIONAL tennis coach was today committed to stand trial over
allegations he had a sexual relationship with a teenage girl while he
was a teacher at an elite Melbourne school.

Gavin Maxwell Hopper, 47, who once trained Mark Philippoussis and
Monica Seles and now runs a Gold Coast tennis academy with Pat Cash,
pleaded not guilty to allegations he indecently assaulted a teenager
while a teacher at Melbourne's Wesley College in the 1980s.

Hopper allegedly started a sexual relationship with the girl, who
cannot be named, when she was a 14-year-old year nine student in 1985.

Witnesses told a committal hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court the
relationship continued for about four years until Hopper broke up with
the girl when he started to show interest in another teenager in the
same year at school.

Magistrate Reg Marron committed Hopper to stand trial in July on two
charges of indecent assault and two of gross indecency on a person
under 16 in his care or supervision.

He ruled there was not enough evidence to send a third gross indecency
charge to trial.

Hopper will not face sex charges as the statute of limitations
requires charges of sexual penetration of a child over 12 to be laid
within a year of the alleged offence.

AAP

Note: Hopper is an ex-coach of Monica Seles