The Athletic has live coverage of Shelton vs. Alcaraz in the U.S. Open quarterfinal.

When U.S. women’s national team forward Trinity Rodman looks to the stands during a soccer match and sees Ben Shelton, she does not see America’s top-ranked men’s tennis player.

Shelton, 23, has become a regular at Washington Spirit games, watching Rodman score braces against Seattle Reign last September and Houston Dash in July. Rodman, 24, has returned the support from his player box at tournaments including Munich, Madrid, Wimbledon, Cincinnati and New York. She will make another appearance on Tuesday night, during Shelton’s U.S. Open quarterfinal match against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz.

Since making their relationship public in March 2025, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist and 2023 U.S. Open semifinalist have increasingly found ways into each other’s sporting worlds.

“I don’t look at him and think, ‘He’s an athlete,’” Rodman said on Kylie Kelce’s “Not Gonna Lie” podcast. “I look at him like that’s my rock and every time I do something, I like to look at him and know we are on the same page on something.”

Shelton’s season began in Australia in January and has since moved through North America and Europe, while Washington’s 30-game NWSL campaign runs from March to November alongside Rodman’s international commitments with the United States.

This summer alone, the Spirit travelled to Mexico for the Concacaf W Champions Cup before Rodman joined the USWNT for matches in Brazil and then returned to the domestic season. On Sunday, she was in Portland, Ore., setting up Washington’s winning goal against the Thorns.

“It’s an important part of our relationship to be able to relate to each other through the different things we go through,” Shelton told the ATP Tour. “Whether it’s media stuff, brand stuff, photoshoots, the pressures of competition and being professional athletes, it is very taxing.

“Some people can say that it’s difficult to maintain a relationship where you have two professional athletes. But in my opinion, to have somebody who understands what you go through is very, very important.”

Trinity Rodman has sat alongside Ben Shelton’s family, including his dad and coach Bryan Shelton, at Wimbledon and other major tennis tournaments. (Susan Mullane/Imagn Images)

Shelton said last year that Rodman had managed to follow him to Munich, Madrid, Paris, Wimbledon, Mallorca, Washington and Cincinnati, a list which has since extended to New York — but the time spent in each other’s sporting worlds has also required some education.

Rodman knew little about tennis before they started dating and much of what she knows now has been learned from Shelton’s box, often alongside his father and coach, Bryan Shelton, who reached world No. 55 during his own professional playing career.

“I ask so many questions,” Rodman said on Kelce’s podcast. “I didn’t know anything and now when I’m in the box with his dad, I’m like: ‘Hey, what’s that? What happened?’ So I would say I know a lot about it now. I know tendencies of certain players now. It’s fun to be able to talk about it now.”

Shelton has become invested enough in soccer for their conversations about Rodman’s games to continue after the final whistle.

“He didn’t know a lot about soccer either,” Rodman said. “He did enjoy watching it. He’s very invested now. We have our little postgame debriefs on the games now. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I hate it.”

Some of that analysis has taken place in public. At Audi Field last September, Shelton watched Rodman score both goals in Washington’s 2-0 victory over Seattle, her first brace since May 2024, when he picked up a microphone after the final whistle and asked her about her combination play with teammate Croix Bethune.

Days earlier, Rodman had been sitting at the back of one of Shelton’s U.S. Open press conferences, but her question was less forgiving: Why had he failed to serve faster than 135 mph?

Trinity Rodman out here asking the tough questions of Ben Shelton 😅 pic.twitter.com/GofD84LNXY

— US Open Tennis (@usopen) August 28, 2025

Rodman entered the NWSL as an 18-year-old in 2021, helped Washington win the championship in her first season and became an Olympic champion with the United States three years later. In January, she negotiated a contract that made her the highest paid player in the league per year and forced the introduction of the High Impact Player rule in the NWSL, which allows teams to spend up to $1 million above the salary cap on players who fit certain criteria.

Since turning professional, she has spent much of her adult life being the person everyone else has come to watch.

“It’s the best feeling in the world,” Rodman said to Kelce. “To know we are both on the grind, running our bodies to the ground, always exhausted doing what we love, and to also be able to be a little ‘WAG’ in a sense. It feels so good for us. We do enjoy it a lot.”

WAG, an acronym for wives and girlfriends, has traditionally been used to identify women through their relationships with high-profile male athletes. For a player with Rodman’s own medals, profile and career, the appeal of the label hits differently.

“For me, I like the term, personally, because 24/7 I’m on, in front of cameras, doing all this,” Rodman said. “I have to be this person. And so I think I use the term WAG to simplify what I’m doing.

“For me saying WAG, I’m saying ‘I’m just Ben’s girlfriend.’ For me, I think that’s why I enjoy that word, but I can understand why it’s so hated.”