Victoria Duval

Duval with Kim Clijsters at the 2012 US Open

Duval kicked off her 2012 season in May by reaching her first professional final at the ITF $10K tournament in Sumter, South Carolina at the age of 16, where she was defeated by compatriot Louisa Chirico. With a wildcard as the 18s girls' national champion, Duval made her grand slam debut at the 2012 US Open, where she lost to three-time champion Kim Clijsters in the first round.

The following year, Duval was able to qualify for the US Open and scored a huge upset win over the 2011 champion Samantha Stosur in the first round.[4] She followed this up with her first career title at an $50K event in Toronto in November.

During the qualifying rounds of Wimbledon in 2014, Duval was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. Nonetheless, she decided to remain in the tournament, and was able to qualify for the main draw. In the first round, she defeated 29th seed Sorana Cîrstea before losing to fellow rising star Belinda Bencic. With the strength of her performance at Wimbledon, Duval made her debut in the top 100 of the WTA rankings at No. 92 in the world. Following the tournament, she proceeded to take the next 13 months off to undergo and recover from chemotherapy treatment.

Duval returned to playing professional matches at an $25K tournament in August 2015. Despite the circumstances of her comeback onto the tour, she was not awarded a wildcard into the US Open. She could have entered the tournament with her protected ranking from the previous year, but elected not to do so after being unsure if she would be ready to play at the time of the entry cutoff five weeks before the start of the event. Instead, Duval opted to play in the qualifying tournament, where she lost in the second round.[5]

At the start of the 2016 season, Duval replaced an injured Serena Williams at the 2016 Hopman Cup. She represented the United States alongside Jack Sock. Although she lost both of her singles matches, Duval and Sock were able to win two out of their three mixed doubles matches, including a victory over the Czech pair of Karolína Plíšková and Jiří Veselý. A month after the tournament, Duval announced she had knee surgery. She made a brief return for the grass court season in the middle of the year, but ended up sitting out another ten months afterwards to return to full health.[6]

After more than two years of intermittently appearing on the tour, Duval returned to playing more regularly on the ITF Circuit starting in April 2017. She had immediate success in her first tournament back, reaching the semifinals at the $80K event in Indian Harbour Beach. Duval again entered the qualifying tournament for the US Open, but had to retire in the final round against good friend and fellow cancer survivor Allie Kiick. A few weeks after the Grand Slam tournament, she reached her first final in over three years at an $25K event. The following month, she reached the biggest final of her career at the Tennis Classic of Macon, losing to former top-30 player Anna Karolína Schmiedlová. With this result, Duval returned to the top 250 in the WTA rankings.