Having just turned 20, Vicky Duval has already endured a lifetime’s share of hardship. At 7, while living in Haiti, Duval was held up at gunpoint by robbers at her aunt’s house. The ordeal prompted her parents to send her and her older brothers, Cedric and Leo, to Miami. Her mother, Nadine, joined them several months later, but her father, Jean-Maurice, stayed in Haiti to continue his medical practice in Port-au-Prince. Eight years later, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti’s capital, burying Jean-Maurice under collapsed walls for 11 hours. He barely survived an operation in his backyard before he was airlifted to a Florida hospital to recover, thanks to the generosity of an Atlanta couple that knew the family through tennis.
Throughout the ordeal, Duval channeled her emotions by focusing on tennis. In 2012, she won the USTA Girls’ 18 National Championships, earning a wild card into the US Open, where she lost in the first round to three-time champion and former world No. 1 Kim Clijsters. She also reached the semifinals of the junior event. One year later, after playing her way through the qualifying tournament and amid chants of “U.S.A.,” Duval notched the biggest win of her career, upsetting 2011 champ Sam Stosur in three sets in the first round.
Then, as she was enjoying her breakthrough, Duval’s world shattered. Just before Wimbledon last year, she noticed a lump in her neck. A battery of tests quickly followed and, moments after a first-round qualifying win over Marta Sirotkina, Duval was given the devastating news that she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She would need to return home and immediately undergo chemotherapy.
Instead, Duval, who had planned a summer of tournaments and a month-long stint with the Philadelphia Freedoms for Mylan World TeamTennis, refused to quit. She won two more qualifying matches, including a three-setter over fellow American Nicole Gibbs, and then upset the 29th seed, Sorana Cirstea, to win her first-ever main draw match at Wimbledon. After losing in the second round to teenager Belinda Bencic, Duval boarded a plane home to start chemotherapy and begin a journey that would take her away from the game for more than a year.
Duval spoke with Cindy Shmerler about her career, her comeback from cancer and being an inspiration.
**
What’s the greatest on-court challenge you’ve faced?**
I think the hardest match I’ve ever played mentally was the one against Bencic. We had a rain delay the day before. I hadn’t really researched the cancer before and I wasn’t too sure what chemotherapy was, to be honest. So, on that day we couldn’t play I took the time to do some research. I learned about chemotherapy, what it does to your body and that it can be very hard. At that point I was upset and scared. I think I cried during 75 percent of that match. I was just like, “I can’t go home; I don’t want to go home and do this.” I couldn’t even think straight, I was crying the whole time. Then, right after the match, I was hysterical and one of the USTA coaches who had been helping me said, “Vicky, why are you crying? You just qualified and won a round. You should be so proud of yourself.” And I was like, “No, that’s not why I’m crying.”