Lilly Pettus, 56, and her husband, Tim Pettus, 54, spent their 26th wedding anniversary watching Serena Williams’s last match at the U.S. Open from the screen outside Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Williams staved off five match points against her opponent, Ajla Tomljanovic, before she eventually lost. The thriller lasted more than three hours, and the crowd inside the stadium was electric, with people shouting: “Go Serena!” and “Don’t give up!”

“I love this journey, and like Serena, I wasn’t ready to give it up,” Pettus said through tears after the match. She and her husband traveled to the U.S. Open from Atlanta and it was their fourth time at the tournament.

“Every point that she went back to fight for, it was like, we’re not ready to give up and she’s not ready to give up and she never gives up,” she said.

“These lessons are what we should have in life, and it’s what she’s taught us: Don’t give up,” Pettus said, adding that “just watching someone with so much passion, who just isn’t willing to give up at all, this is a beautiful thing. I like to live my life that way too.”

Tim Pettus said that the Williamses’ parents inspired him and his wife as parents. “Venus and Serena’s parents had a plan for their children, and they worked hard to make that plan come true, and those girls took it and did exactly what their mother and father asked them to do: Be the best. And they were,” he said.

Tammy Felton, 61, has been following Williams from the very beginning: She was inside Arthur Ashe Stadium when Williams captured her first singles title here in 1999. Felton, who is from New Jersey, has been attending the U.S. Open a long time, often bringing her daughters with her.

“She was this young, African American fighting for her place in the tennis world that was primarily white, it was great just to see her starting and making history,” Felton said, adding that Williams taught her “determination, being persistent, just learning to be the best even when the odds are against you.”

Felton was inside the stadium during Williams’ final match, and felt anxious the whole time. She said she was “just glad to witness it. It just meant so much to see the greatest player of all time play her final match.”

The match was bittersweet for Natalie Pressey, 59. She wanted Williams to win but was pleased by how Williams was “gracious, even in losing.”

Williams has done so much, especially for Black women, Pressey said.

“As Black women, we don’t show our true selves all the time, so we have to live in this world where we are constantly shifting,” she said. “But from Day 1 with the beads, you didn’t get any more Black than that.”

“She was herself and you just always wanted to cheer, you felt your blood boil every time you saw her, it’s like ‘Yes, girl. Yes,’” Pressey said.

Her husband, Keith Pressey, 61, also of New Jersey, said he began following tennis because of the Williams sisters because “they were different, they were unapologetic for who they were and it caught my attention, and they were good.”

Felton and the Presseys were part of a group of 65 members of Jack and Jill, a Black social club, who were brought to the U.S. Open by Shirell A. Gross, 55, a former program director for Jack and Jill of River Vale, New Jersey. The group has a partnership with the USTA’s diversity and inclusion office, and plans to bring 133 more members to the tournament on Saturday.

“This is a great opportunity as an African American mothers organization to come and see this, essentially Black mother playing with such power and force,” Gross said.

Some of sport’s other greatest athletes, including Tiger Woods, also paid tribute to Williams. “You’re literally the greatest on and off the court,” Woods tweeted Friday night. “Thank you for inspiring all of us to pursue our dreams. I love you little sis!!!!!!”

Coco Gauff, who won her match on Friday against Madison Keys, said on Twitter: “It is because of you I believe in this dream.”