Trinity Rodman won’t miss this weekend’s crucial Washington Spirit match against the Boston Legacy.
She isn’t skipping a game that holds implications for first place in the NWSL to attend the U.S. Open men’s singles tennis final — potentially featuring her boyfriend, Ben Shelton, who took defending champion Carlos Alcaraz to five sets and a tiebreak in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
That doesn’t mean she’s unwilling to support Shelton in a relationship that has become increasingly buzz-worthy since the pair went public in March 2025 — it’s simply a reflection of how both balance their relationship alongside their demanding schedules. Still, it is Rodman who faces a disproportionate amount of questions about her ability to do both.
Rodman was at Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, just days after assisting the Spirit’s winning goal against the Thorns in Portland. Still awake for Shelton’s final ace at 3:33 a.m., she celebrated with his signature “dialed in” phone celebration. She was also visibly miffed as Shelton joked about his best friend and sister needing to work in three hours and hoping they could get the day off. The cameras caught her with her arms out as she said, “What about me?”
The Spirit confirmed seven hours later that she’d be in uniform on Sunday, and that she was at the team’s training facility in Virginia, reporting at 9 on Wednesday morning. Rodman even shared the video for proof.
She’s also not the only one committing to intense travel at all hours to show up as part of this athlete power couple. The support goes both ways.
Shelton has popped up at Spirit games after quick turnarounds, most notably last November after his first appearance in the ATP finals.
On Nov. 14, he lost to Jannik Sinner in Turin, Italy, in straight sets, starting at 2 p.m. local. By 12 p.m. ET the next day, he was at the Spirit’s semifinal win over the Portland Thorns in a field-level suite at Audi Field to watch Rodman. The following week, he made the trip to San Jose to support his girlfriend and the Spirit at the NWSL Championship. The gesture was largely seen in a positive light.
“Some people can say that it’s difficult to maintain a relationship where you have two professional athletes,” Shelton recently told the ATP Tour. “But in my opinion, to have somebody who understands what you go through is very, very important.”
Rodman was able to use a long injury layoff to attend multiple tournaments for Shelton last year, but not without scrutiny.
“Yes, I’m grinding almost every day in PT to get back on the field,” she wrote on a social media post in May 2025, pushing back on the narrative that she couldn’t show up for her partner and work on her personal recovery goals. “NO, I’m not just being a wag and vacationing:) thank you.”
WAG, short for wives and girlfriends, was coined by British tabloids as shorthand for footballers’ significant others when reporting their every move and look — most notably, Victoria Beckham. The phenomenon has continued to follow players of all sports and their partners.
Rodman has typically embraced playfulness over defensiveness when it comes to her relationship. She has not forgotten who she is in these moments — nor has it deterred her from showing off her unique fashion choices — but has navigated the discourse over their relationship by largely letting it pass her by and staying on her own message.
After all, most of it is not within her control.
She doesn’t control ESPN’s caption, which described her as “Ben’s girlfriend & USWNT player” during Shelton’s first-round match last week. She responded at his second-round match, wearing a T-shirt that read “I ❤️ my boyfriend.” By then, the order had been reversed following backlash.
Rodman cannot stop ESPN commentators from speculating if she would miss a regular-season match that has the chance to lift her team to No. 1 in the standings to attend the U.S. Open men’s final, presuming Shelton gets past Frances Tiafoe in Friday’s semifinal match. The chance that tennis commentator John McEnroe knows much about the Spirit beyond Rodman’s involvement seems infinitesimal.
This is the friction that keeps popping up and, more often than not, in Rodman’s direction rather than Shelton’s. It is why there is a defensiveness from others on her behalf; it is far more normal for her own accomplishments and responsibilities to be diminished in favor of Shelton’s, or for her to be talked about in relation to other men (either Shelton, or far more frequently, her father despite her own clearly stated wishes for that to end). The Grand Slams element doesn’t lessen the attention.
In September 2025, Sheldon was shown on screen during a Spirit game with the title “Trinity Rodman’s +1” on a Paramount+ broadcast (a game Rodman scored both goals, helping the Spirit capture a 2-0 win over the Seattle Reign at Audi Field). That one didn’t go viral. It was also clearly meant in a playful manner, rather than ESPN’s attempt at informing viewers.
The NWSL is happy to draft off Shelton’s profile and his relationship with Rodman, both in their quest for new fans and as the league sees Rodman as one of the primary breakthrough stars of American women’s soccer. But the NWSL ecosystem centers on Rodman, not Shelton.
For years, we have seen World Cup winners described in headlines as someone’s wife. It’s not just a women’s soccer problem. Watch any USA Hockey broadcast during the Olympics, and husbands and fathers are talked about nearly as much as the action on the ice. There’s a clear pattern across sports media as a whole.
Rodman’s chosen approach resists that history. She even embraces the term WAG. When speaking with Kylie Kelce on her “Not Gonna Lie” podcast, Rodman said she doesn’t mind the word choice because it simplifies what she’s choosing to do when she shows up to support Shelton.
Despite her disinterest in engaging, despite her consistently choosing to opt for playfulness rather than being defensive, it doesn’t mean she enjoys it at the end of the day.
“It’s a blessing in so many ways,” Rodman told Kelce on being in a relationship that had captured the public’s attention, before agreeing with Kelce’s interjection that it was also “garbage.”
“Too many people have too many opinions that they need to speak on,” Rodman concluded, “and it’s just like, mind your business.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
US Women’s national team, Washington Spirit, NWSL, Women’s Soccer, Culture
2026 The Athletic Media Company
Discover more from NAIRAVOICE.COM.NG
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
