Ben Shelton’s five-set win over Carlos Alcaraz at the 2026 US Open, which ended at 3:33 a.m. and sent him into the semifinals against Frances Tiafoe, was watched from the stands by his girlfriend, USWNT and Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman.
She has become a fixture at his biggest matches over the past year and a half, just as he has at hers, and their relationship has grown into one of the more visible athlete couples in American sports.
Who Trinity Rodman is
Trinity Rodman plays forward for the Washington Spirit in the NWSL and for the US women’s national team. She is the daughter of former Chicago Bulls player Dennis Rodman, though she has been public about having an estranged relationship with her father and has pushed back on media coverage that focuses on that connection rather than her own career.
She was part of the USWNT squad that won Olympic gold at the 2024 Paris Games, scoring three goals during the tournament.
Earlier this year, Rodman signed a contract extension with the Washington Spirit reportedly worth more than $2 million annually including bonuses, making her the highest-paid player in NWSL history and the highest-paid women’s soccer player in the world.
She has continued to be one of the Spirit’s most productive players since signing that deal, leading the team in goals and assists through the 2026 season, including a run through the Concacaf W Champions Cup in Mexico and international appearances with the USWNT in Brazil in the same stretch.
How the relationship started
Rodman and Shelton began dating in early 2025. Speculation about a relationship started after the two posted TikTok videos using the same audio on March 6, 2025, with captions that fans pieced together to spell out each other’s names: Shelton’s read “T****** wsp with u,” widely read as spelling “Trinity,” while Rodman’s read “_ _ _ wassup w you,” read as spelling “Ben.”
Shelton confirmed the relationship publicly on Instagram later that month, posting a photo carousel that included an image of Rodman kissing him on the cheek, captioned “I been focused, but I’m steady climbin’, I’m nowhere near my peak.”
Rodman commented “Shooters shoot I guess” on the post. Fellow tennis players jumped into the comments as well: Frances Tiafoe wrote “We gram now” with three eye emojis, while Coco Gauff and Sloane Stephens both commented “hard launch.”
Rodman later said on Kylie Kelce’s podcast “Not Gonna Lie” that she was the one who reached out first to start things between them, describing the moment as “embarrassing” in hindsight. She also said on the same podcast that she does not think of Shelton primarily as an athlete, saying, “I don’t look at him and think, ‘He’s an athlete.'”
Showing up for each other
Both athletes compete on demanding travel schedules. Shelton’s tennis season runs from January through November across multiple continents, while Rodman’s NWSL season runs roughly March through November alongside international duty with the USWNT.
Despite the overlap, the two have made a consistent habit of showing up for each other’s competitions whenever their calendars allow.
Rodman has appeared in Shelton’s player box at tournaments including Munich, Madrid, Wimbledon, Cincinnati, the Canadian Open in Montreal, and the US Open. In August 2025, she took an overnight flight from California to New York after a Washington Spirit match against Bay FC so she could be at Shelton’s US Open first-round win the next day, against Ignacio Buse in straight sets.
Shelton thanked her from the court afterward, telling the crowd, “My girlfriend took the red-eye from California last night to be here.” Rodman also wore custom pants to that match reading “Shelton” down one leg and “Big Ben” on the other.
At the Canadian Open in August 2026, Rodman’s visit to Montreal before Shelton’s fourth-round match was described by outlets covering the couple as an “unexpected surprise.”
After Shelton went on to win the title, defending it from the year before, Rodman wrote on Instagram: “Drive, dedication and commitment. Back to back Canada champ! Celebrate every win baby…I love you.”
Shelton has said of Rodman’s presence at his tournaments, “I won a title at I think every tournament she’s been at this year. You’re definitely the good luck charm, so I really appreciate you making the effort,” a comment he made from the court after winning the BOSS Open in Stuttgart in June 2026, when Rodman was in the stands wearing a “BEN 10” tank top just after flying in from a USWNT match in Brazil.
Shelton has returned the support at Washington Spirit games as well, including matches against Seattle Reign and Houston Dash, and has spoken publicly about the value of dating someone who understands the demands of professional sports.
“It’s an important part of our relationship to be able to relate to each other through the different things we go through,” he told the ATP Tour. “Whether it’s media stuff, brand stuff, photoshoots, the pressures of competition and being professional athletes, it is very taxing.”
The strain of two demanding schedules
The relationship has not been without the difficulty that comes from two full-time professional schedules running in parallel. Rodman told Victory+ in July 2025, after a first-round Wimbledon loss freed Shelton up to attend one of her matches, “It’s bittersweet. I wish he wasn’t here, but I’m obviously happy whenever he’s able to come and support me and I get to spend time with him.”
That comment captured a recurring theme in how both have talked about the relationship publicly: one partner’s win on the court often means the other partner’s disappointment, since it frees up time to attend a match neither wanted to be free for in the first place.
At the 2026 Wimbledon Championships, Rodman was present alongside Ben’s parents, Bryan and Lisa Shelton, and his sister, Emma Shelton, for his run to the quarterfinals, where he lost to eventual champion Jannik Sinner.
That appearance placed her squarely inside the extended Shelton family group that regularly travels to his biggest matches, rather than as an occasional visitor.
At the 2026 US Open
Rodman has been in Shelton’s box throughout his run at Flushing Meadows in 2026, including for his quarterfinal win over Alcaraz that ended at 3:33 in the morning. If Shelton advances past Tiafoe in the semifinals, he will be aiming to become the first American man to win a Grand Slam singles title since Andy Roddick’s 2003 US Open win, a drought that has now stretched 23 years, with Rodman expected to be watching from the stands again as she has been for nearly every major result of his career since March 2025.
