Ben Shelton has risen to become America’s top-ranked men’s tennis player and one of the most exciting presences on the ATP Tour over the last few years. Behind that rise is a family that has been on the court with him, in some cases literally, from the very beginning. His father Bryan is his coach, his mother Lisa comes from a tennis family herself, and his sister Emma played college tennis before moving into finance. Adding more adrenaline to this sports-loving family is his longtime girlfriend Trinity Rodman, an Olympic champion with the U.S. Women’s National Team and the highest-paid woman in soccer worldwide.
“It’s very important I think, one, having my family in my corner, who have been super supportive my whole career, it’s really important,” Shelton told ATPTour.com ahead of the 2026 U.S. Open. “And, two, having a partner, a girlfriend, who understands all the same things, knows when to support, what to say in tough moments—is selfless enough to be there for me in my moments and actually enjoy my big moments and vice versa—has been really cool.”
Here, get to know more about Ben Shelton’s family:
Ben’s father, Bryan
Bryan Shelton grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, and played tennis at Georgia Tech, where he was an All-ACC selection all four years and an All-American in his senior season. After graduating in 1989, he played professionally for nearly a decade, reaching a career-high singles ranking of No. 55 in the world and winning two ATP singles titles at Newport in 1991 and 1992. He also reached the mixed doubles final at the 1992 French Open alongside Lori McNeil.
Bryan and Ben during practice at Wimbledon in 2025.
He retired from the tour in 1997 and moved into coaching, eventually returning to Georgia Tech to lead the women’s tennis program, which he coached to the NCAA championship in 2007. He then moved to the University of Florida, where he coached the men’s team to the 2021 national title, making him the only coach in history to win NCAA Division I championships in both men’s and women’s tennis. He stepped down from that role in June 2023 to coach his son full time. Ben played for the Florida Gators during his college years, coached by his father, before turning pro.
The Sheltons after Ben won the 2025 Canadian Open.
“Any player-coach relationship has to be delicate, and it has to be even more delicate when it’s also a father-son relationship,” Ben told T&C in 2024. “My dad does a great job balancing the two and he does a great job knowing when to put on the coach hat, and when to put on the dad hat.”
Ben’s mother, Lisa
Lisa at the 2026 U.S. Open.
Lisa Shelton, née Witsken, grew up in Carmel, Indiana, as one of eight siblings in a family steeped in tennis. Her late brother, Todd Witsken, was a professional player who reached a career-high ranking of No. 4 in doubles and No. 43 in singles before his death from brain cancer at age 34 in 1998. Lisa was an accomplished junior player herself, and she and Bryan reportedly met in a hotel lobby at the Australian Open in 1993. They married in October 1999 and raised their family in Gainesville, Florida, where Bryan was coaching at the University of Florida. Lisa usually travels to the Grand Slam tournaments and occasionally a few other big stops on the ATP Tour each year.
Ben and Lisa at Wimbledon in 2025.
“It’s amazing having both of them here. She likes to come to the cool ones,” Ben said in a post-match interview at Indian Wells in 2024. “She’ll come here. She’ll come to the U.S. Open. She’ll come to Wimbledon, Australian Open this year. It’s awesome to have my family here watching.”
Ben’s sister, Emma
Emma, right, during Wimbledon last summer.
Born in March 2001, Emma is Ben’s older sister by roughly 18 months. She grew up playing tennis alongside her brother, trained by their father, and was a standout junior player in high school, and later played college tennis at the University of South Carolina, where she won the 2020 ITA Carolina Region Rookie of the Year. Emma later transferred to the University of Florida, where she earned a degree in business administration and finance. After graduating in 2023, she joined Morgan Stanley, working in investments management and is based in New York.
Ben has made his sister a recurring subject of his post-match interviews, starting memorably at Wimbledon in 2025 when he made a public appeal for her employer to give her extra time off so she could keep watching him play. By the end of the day, he posted on Instagram that Morgan Stanley had come through, writing “Shoutout Morgan Stanley!”
Trinity Rodman and Emma Shelton at Wimbledon in 2025.
He repeated the gesture after his record-breaking late-night quarterfinal win over Carlos Alcaraz at the 2026 U.S. Open, which ended in the early hours of the morning. “I’m just hoping that my best friend and my sister over there don’t have to be at work at 6 a.m. in three hours,” he said during the post-match interview. The game ended at 3:33 a.m.
Ben’s girlfriend, Trinity Rodman
Trinity after the quarterfinals of the 2026 U.S. Open.
Trinity Rodman is one of the most decorated players in the National Women’s Soccer League. The Washington Spirit forward was the second overall pick in the 2021 NWSL Draft at just 18 years old, becoming the youngest draftee in league history, and helped the club win the championship in her debut season. She won an Olympic gold medal with the USWNT at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. In January 2026, Trinity signed a contract worth over $2 million per year, making her the highest-paid female soccer player in the world. Also an Adidas brand ambassador, she was the only American soccer player, male or female, to appear in one of the athletic brand’s 2026 World Cup commercials, appearing in the short film Backyard Legends with Timothée Chalamet, Lionel Messi, Bad Bunny, Jude Bellingham, and Lamine Yamal. She is also the daughter of former NBA player Dennis Rodman, though she has spoken candidly about their estranged relationship.
Trinity in the quarterfinals at the 2024 Olympics.
Trinity with her USWNT Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson teammates at the 2024 Olympics. They became known as “Triple Espresso” for their dynamic rapport on the field.
Ben and Trinity went public in March 2025 and have since become one of the most visible couples in U.S. sports, showing up for each other across tennis tournaments and soccer matches despite the demands of two overlapping professional schedules. “I don’t look at him and think, ‘He’s an athlete,’” Rodman said on Kylie Kelce’s Not Gonna Lie podcast in August. “I look at him like, ‘That’s my rock.’”
Ben has been equally direct about what the relationship means to him. “There’s a lot mentally that goes into all that, and I think that’s what we help each other with the most,” Ben said during an episode of the Atlanta Hawks podcast in December 2025, when asked about handling media commitments and scrutiny. “I’m just learning from her. She’s the big-time star, the mainstream U.S. star, and I’m kind of just low-key, doing what she needs. It’s been great supporting each other.”
Ben watching Trinity during a Washington Spirit match in 2025.
He also noted they’ve learned a lot about their respective sports from each other. Trinity has been spotted many times in Ben’s player’s box, including at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2025 as well as the U.S. Open again in 2026. Ben has also been a familiar presence on the sideline at Washington Spirit games over the last year. “It’s funny because she’s really gotten into tennis the way that I’ve gotten into soccer. She’s watching it all the time. Sometimes I’ll go home, and she will have YouTube on, watching one of my old matches,” Ben said in the 2026 ATP interview. “It’s been cool to see. She’s got into playing, too. And we’re both very competitive people, so I’m trying to get as good as I can with soccer, and she’s trying to do the same with tennis.”
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at .