Eugenie Bouchard, Casey Dellacqua And Concussions In Women's Tennis

— -- Sprained ankles? Yup. Torn rotator cuffs? You know it. Pulled hamstrings, strained abdominals, sprained wrists, stiff knees, inflamed backs? Check, check, check, check and check. The list of ailments tennis players deal with over the course of their brutal year-round seasons reads like a human anatomy textbook.

Now, it seems, we need to add a chapter on concussions.

While brain trauma caused by a blow to the head will never be an everyday occurrence in an individual, non-contact sport such as tennis, two high-profile cases invaded the WTA Tour in 2015 and will linger into at least the start of 2016.

Australian Casey Dellacqua, who made it to the doubles final at both the French Open and US Open this year, suffered a season-ending concussion in October from an on-court fall in Beijing. Earlier, Canadian star Eugenie Bouchard fell in a US Open locker room that led to her fourth-round withdrawal from the year's final major.

Even as concussions have become part of our pop-culture lexicon -- prompting rule changes and new medical protocols in sports, not to mention the upcoming movie "Concussion," starring Will Smith -- there are still those who think head-injury awareness has morphed into hypersensitivity. So-called "old-school" sports fans remember the days when athletes played through serious physical issues without regard to potentially dangerous long-term consequences. In tennis, where there is little risk of a repeat injury, some fans struggle to sympathize with lingering concussion symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, visual disturbances and memory loss as players attempt a return to the tour. How bad, they say, can it be?

On the night of her accident, Bouchard returned to the US Open training room for an ice bath after the staff had left for the day, according to a member of her team. A dark room and a recently mopped floor allegedly led to a backwards fall, a blow to the back of her head and an end to her disappointing 2015 season. A month later, the 21-year-old retired from her comeback match in Beijing, citing dizziness. She hasn't played competitively since.

Sentiments like the following from an online commenter have been echoed by casual observers of the Bouchard case: "I've never really known someone to need this long to recover from a concussion brought on by a fall. Sure, a car accident or something like that. Perhaps she's just trying to gather herself after the whole incident and this terrible year."