Can Venus Williams still contend for majors?

Venus Williams bowed out of the Australian Open singles with a 6-1, 6-3 loss to Maria Sharapova in the third round. It was supposed to be the marquee match-up of the first week on the women's draw. Williams, a seven-time grand slam winner against the much younger Sharapova, who has four grand slams (one of each) and is currently No. 2 on the tour.

The only excitement from the match came from Sharapova, who irked some tennis fans with her excessive celebration after the win. If you hadn't watched the match, you'd think one of two things: Sharapova had just won her fifth grand slam title, or just endured a long and tough three-set battle.

Perhaps it was a sign of respect. After all, the Williams sisters dominated the women's tour for much of the last decade. Though younger sister Serena is still the best player in the game, Venus' struggles with Sjogren's Syndrome has slowed her effectiveness. Once one of the quickest women on tour, Venus is only just figuring out how to control the side effects of the autoimmune disease, with symptoms such as extreme fatigue, muscle pain, numbness in the limbs and bronchitis.

Whether or not Venus should retire has been the talk of the tour since her diagnosis, and the speculation will only get louder if she continues crashing out of major tournaments in the first week. Watching her against Sharapova, she moved very well, despite getting blown off the court. She looked and moved a lot better than the Venus we've seen in the last two years. She's enjoying tennis so much more now that even a loss produces smiles. She's even committed, with Serena, to more doubles matches at the bigger tournaments.

That's one strategy that Venus needs to get back on top: playing more doubles tournaments. Not only does winning–which is all but guaranteed when paired with her sister–build her confidence, but it helps her work on her net game. At 6-foot-2,she is the tallest woman on tour, and has the longest wingspan. At the net, Venus is as graceful as a gazelle, stretching out to get balls that seem unreachable. She showed flashes of this weapon against Sharapova. But just as quickly as she gave a taste of it, it was gone; relegated to the bottom of her bag of weapons.

Thing is, at 32, Venus is an elder stateswoman on tour, but she no longer has the agility and power Serena has maintained. She cannot continue to slug it out at the baseline against the current crop of women emerging. These women, unlike the Williams sisters main rivals in their heyday, are just as powerful, but with fresher legs.

If you ask me if Venus can still win a grand slam, I'll say yes. I think she has one more Wimbledon title in her. Think Pete Sampras at the 2002 U.S. Open. But she isn't going to get there by defiantly planting her feet at the baseline. She's still got one of her biggest weapons, her serve. Though she struggles to hit them consistently, she's still got enough in the tank to rely on her big serve to set up a serve and volley situation. The shorter Venus can limit her rallies, the better her chances are of playing deep into the second week.

I don't Venus is ready to retire. In fact, I don't want her to retire this way. With the contributions she and her sister have made to the sport, she deserves to go out on a high note. Earlier today, I watched the Baltimore Ravens defeat the New England Patriots for a spot in the Super Bowl. The Ravens, led by defensive captain Ray Lewis, have defied expectations to earn their spot. But since Lewis announced he would retire after the season, the Ravens have played like a different team; a team on a mission to give their emotional leader a parting gift. But win or lose, Lewis will retire as one of the most respected men to have played football, but he'll also exit having played at the highest level.

That's what Venus deserves: to make one last run at a grand slam. Can she do it? Certainly, but only if she adopts a different strategy that involves committing to more of a net game.

Manti Te'o's girlfriend real or fiction?

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o is caught up in a whirlwind scandal with the potential to usurp his attention-grabbing 2012 College Football season.

In September, Te'o, a 2012 Heisman Trophy finalist, revealed that his grandmother had passed away. Just six hours later, Te'o announced that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua, who had survived a car accident, had also passed away from her battle with leukemia.

Well, as you know, Te'o, inspired by these two losses, carried his team to the National Championship game; Notre Dame's first shot at the title in 24 seasons. But a recent expose has called into question the credibility of his story; particularly of Kekua's existence.

Well does she exist or not?

Not according to a story published by online sports publication Deadspin, which you can read in its entirety here

Writers Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey allege that the picture of Kekua floating around the internet, and being used in media stories, is of a 22-year-old California woman who is not only alive, but was never in an accident or battled cancer.

Te'o claims he was the victim of a calculated hoax, saying he was led to believe a young woman he developed an emotional online and phone relationship with was real. But the story gets complicated because much of the details shared by the media has taken many dramatic twists and turns in a bid to paint Te'o as an inspiration to others. Te'o never shied away from sharing details about meeting her (in person) after a game at Stanford, which we now know to be false. He shared a tear-jerker about staying up all night to talk to her while she lay on a hospital bed.

Deadspin cites a former classmate of the unidentified woman in the picture, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, as the likely source of the hoax. Other classmates have apparently said they believe Tuiasosopo created the hoax. A Notre Dame official says Te'o was merely a victim, but a friend of Tuiasosopo told Deadspin he was "80 percent sure" that Te'o helped plan the hoax to help boost his popularity.

This story gets weirder. An Arizona Cardinal football player is claiming that Kekua's identity is real and that he met her during a charity visit to Samoa in 2011. Reagan Mauia said while visiting the American territory along with fellow Polynesian football player Troy Palomalu, he was introduced to Kekua by Tuiasosopo. In ESPN's report of the story, he described her as a "Volleyball-type of physique. She was athletic, tall, beautiful. Long hair. Polynesian. She looked like a model ..."

There's so much conflicting information about this story that it warrants reading the original story on Deadspin to get the full picture. But you get the message. Someone's lying in this picture, and this is the worst time for a big-time athlete to be labeled a liar.

Fresh off revelation that seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong took part in perhaps the biggest doping cover-up in sports, and emphatically lied about it, Te'o should want nothing to do with this story right now. He's been touted as a possible first round draft pick in this year's NFL draft, but if it turns out that he partook in a calculated attempt to deceive the whole country –using a devastating disease like leukemia no less–then his career as he knows it is over. Notre Dame can protect him for the remainder of his college career. Some NFL team may even take a chance on him (heck, even convicted liar Maurice Clarett was drafted,) but he will never get the fame or endearment that he so badly coveted. He'll forever be linked to this bizarre plot.

Sadly, the price of fame has risen to such astronomical heights that people would do just about anything to get it. In this day when reality TV is considered more profitable than original scripted programming, exposing the supposed reality of everyday people is the norm. It doesn't matter that most reality shows have in fact been determined to be anything but real; merely dusted fragments of actual reality sprinkled into the giant pot of scripted reality soup. The Te'o reality show fits this bill to the Tee. There were some real aspects of it: his grandmother's passing was genuine. But that story was largely overshadowed by the more tear-inducing, but totally unreal one of his cancer-stricken girlfriend, which was eaten up by the media and retold at any moment Te'o's face flashed across a TV screen.

It would be nice to know Te'o had nothing to do with this. It will be good to know he's too talented to have relied on cheap tricks exploiting the sympathy of cancer victims, their families and college football fans. But I'm a little suspicious of a relationship so strong and inspiring, but not nearly enough to warrant a visit after her supposed car accident, her battle with leukemia, her funeral or even to her tombstone. Not even so much as a skype confirmation of her existence? Why didn't he correct the misinformation about Kekua enrolled as a student in Stanford? I want to give Te'o the benefit of doubt, but as Armstrong and reality TV have proven, some people will go through any length to be successful.

Is Te'o one of them?

**Here's a link to a CBS story about Manti Te'o overcoming the odds. Unfortunately the embedding function was disabled so I couldn't post it on here. But you can find it here.

Meanwhile you can check out this ESPN video summarizing the aftermath of the Deadspin expose.

Lance Armstrong to admit doping in Oprah interview

After years of denial, cyclist Lance Armstrong plans to confess to doping during his long and successful career, which produced a record seven Tour de France titles.

Several sources say Armstrong will come clean in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, which will be taped Monday. The interview will air on Thursday.

Details of the interview have not been released, so it isn't exactly clear how much Armstrong will say about his role in what has been called the most comprehensive doping cover-up in sports history. According to a statement on her website, Winfrey's says it will be a "no-holds-barred interview."

So why now? Why admit to it after years of denial, libelous lawsuits and millions in donations to his Livestrong Foundation? Sources say Armstrong hopes to earn some sympathy for his foundation, which helps cancer victims battle their disease. He no longer sits on the board of the foundation. Armstrong, 41, also hopes to have a shot at returning to competition. The cancer survivor was a competitive triathlete after his cycling career ended, but received a lifelong ban from competing in any event sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency after he was stripped of his titles.