People
From the outside, Paige Lorenze and Tommy Paul couldn't appear to have more different careers.
Lorenze, 27, is the founder and creative director of the clothing and lifestyle brand Dairy Boy, which has swelled in popularity since Lorenze initially founded it in 2021. The brand blends her love of the outdoors and country-living aesthetics with classic, New England-inspired apparel. She's amassed a following of millions across her social platforms, and her clothing drops frequently sell out within minutes.
On the other hand, Paul, is an American professional tennis player, with four ATP tour titles to his name, as well as a bronze medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris and a career that has consistently kept him ranked inside the men's singles top 20.
Their career paths may look like polar opposites, but that hasn't stopped the couple — who announced their engagement back in July of 2025 — from finding a way to intertwine their professional passions.
In fact, their shared values and similar upbringings are what inspired their newest endeavor: a joint nonprofit organization called Kids Outdoors, which launched on Friday, Jan. 16, amid the Australian Open, where Paul is competing.
The nonprofit is dedicated to "opening the world of sport and the outdoors to children everywhere." Lorenze plans to contribute portions of her sport-related brand partnerships, while Paul will give back through prize money, tennis gear and future sport clinics.
"This is something that Tommy and I have talked about doing for a long time," Lorenze tells PEOPLE exclusively. " Now is the time in our careers where we really think it's crucial to give back."
Both Lorenze and Paul credit sports and the outdoors as foundational to who they are today. Lorenze grew up as a downhill ski racer, while Paul was raised playing tennis in North Carolina and Florida. Despite the differences between the couple's sports of choice, sports, and being raised around them, have given the two a shared "drive" that fuels their decisions and their relationship.
The couple's decision to launch Kids Outdoors at the Open together was also deeply tied to their semi-long distance relationship — a somewhat unusual status for the engaged couple, whose 2026 nuptials are growing closer and closer.
With Lorenze running her company from her native Connecticut and Paul traveling nearly 10 months of the year on tour, working in tandem has offered a meaningful shift for the couple — one that Paul calls "a dream."
In fact, they might even be seeing more of each other professionally than personally nowadays, Lorenze jokes.
"It's actually really interesting working with him in a more professional setting. And it's been fun because I don't get to hop on a lot of Zoom calls with Tommy. He's usually on the tennis court," she says.
"It's not for everyone," she admits, of the way their work schedules mix with their personal lives. "But I feel like we've both really grown and our communication is better."
The pair have become skilled at supporting each other from afar, with Lorenze telling PEOPLE that her fiancé has “really allowed me to be my own person and empowered me to follow my dreams. I think that because he follows his, he also knows that I deserve to chase my dreams and goals."
Paul is in agreement, saying that despite the distance, the two are still a "team in two different places."
"When Paige is at the office building a brand, it feels like not just her succeeding, it feels like we are succeeding. And when I win, I feel like she feels the same way," he affirms.
"It always feels like a part of me is in Connecticut when she's up there, a part of her is in Florida. And I think that's another thing that made us want to do this."
Much of the nonprofit centers on the couple's similarities in their upbringing — playing sports and spending time outdoors — which the two are eager to uphold through the nonprofit and as they look to the future of their careers and their professional legacies, as well as their growing family.
Lorenze teases dreams of sharing their love of the outdoors with their future kids, revealing that she and Tommy want to raise their children on a farm.
Cultivating access to sports and a fondness for nature will "definitely" be how the two raise their kids. "And this is something we hopefully will do for a long time, and that will exist even after Tommy retires," Lorenze says.
“I don't think you can put a value on growing up, being outside, playing sports," Paul agrees. " I think it teaches you so much and it has totally made me and Paige who we are today."
While the two have high hopes for the future of their careers and this latest join endeavor, they've also gotten to see a new side of each other with the work, and they both share how they see each other showing up as one another's biggest fans.
"We also give each other a lot of feedback, which to me, makes the compliments even more legitimate," she says. " It's not just all, ‘You're amazing.' We truly are in constant communication about ways that we can be better and then the ways that we're succeeding."
"I have a great team around me, but Paige knows me better than all of them," Paul agrees.
"And she knows when I'm locked in, she knows when I'm not. She knows how to get me locked in if I don't want to be. So I mean, I feel constant support. Even when she's in Connecticut and I'm on the road or something, she watches every single one of my matches. It doesn't matter if it's 3:00 AM her time, she'll be watching."
It's this focus on the bigger picture that helps the couple navigate through both the good times and the bad, the two share.
"Any time or energy we're taking up on something negative, whether it's a silly fight between us or noise on the Internet or whatever, I think that we're such a unit and we have such ambitions for our family and for our careers that anything negative doesn't really have space," Lorenze says.
"We have goals for ourselves and goals for each other," Paul says. "And at the end of the day, those are what we're focused on."
By
Tabitha Parent is a writer at PEOPLE covering entertainment and culture. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2024. Her work has previously appeared in Marin Magazine, 57 & 65° Magazines, The San Francisco Bay Times, and Northwestern University's award-winning school newspaper Daily Northwestern.
Published on January 16, 2026 01:17PM EST
