Explained: From team selection to QF exit, Team USA's doubles drama at Davis Cup ft. Rajeev Ram, Mardy Fish, and Tommy Paul

The biggest question on the minds of American tennis fans since Team USA's Davis Cup exit yesterday is, "Did Rajeev Ram's exclusion make all the difference?"

One of the strongest contenders for the championship this year, the US crashed out of the 110th edition of the Davis Cup on Thursday after a 2-1 loss against Italy. Team USA, which holds the record for the highest number of titles (32), had the services of Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Jack Sock, and Tommy Paul with former player Mardy Fish as its captain. Sock and Paul lost the deciding doubles clash to Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini.

Leaving out Ram, the current World No. 3 in the doubles category, raised some eyebrows, especially given that he and Britain's Joe Salisbury won two Masters 1000 tournaments, a Grand Slam title, and the Nitto ATP finals this season. There has been a lot of tension over the last five days, with the concerned athletes taking digs at each other.

It started with Ram's press conference after winning the year-end championship last week, where he slammed the team for overlooking him, despite his instrumental role in its success.

"Very disappointed. I put in a lot of hard work this year to help the team get there. I felt like I had earned the spot, if you will. So I was quite surprised when I wasn't picked, and even more surprised to be honest that they only went with four players instead of five. That was the choice. But, yeah, I was hoping to be on the team for sure," Ram said.

38-year-old Ram teamed up with Sock for the qualifiers and the group stages earlier this year, winning three out of their four matches and helping the team reach the knock-out stages. But he was still ignored by captain Fish, who stated in a pre-tournament press conference that he didn't select the team based on the rankings alone.

"Obviously, Rajeev Ram is one of the best players in the world. But putting a team together isn't as simple as just taking a player that's ranked high and put him with another player and just hope that they do well," Fish said.

After Italy beat the US yesterday, 40-year-old Fish once again defended his decision by saying that Rajeev Ram wouldn't have made a difference since the Italian players were too good.

“We’ve got a lot of great players that play for the U.S. Rajeev is one of them," Fish said. "He wasn’t on the team this year, and that’s my choice. This is the team that I put on the court. Jack and Frances are a phenomenal team. We had a lot of options. This was the team we went with today. But if Rajeev was here or not, those guys were going to win today. They played well and they’re too good.”

Tommy Paul deletes tweet targeting Rajeev Ram

Rajeev Ram during a Davis Cup group stage match

As soon as the encounter was over, Rajeev Ram put out a tweet saying:

"How’s everyone’s Thanksgiving going?"

Tommy Paul hit back at Ram without naming him. The 25-year-old posted a couple of tweets but deleted one of them soon after.

"It’s so cool to see ppl who aren’t/will never be Davis cup captains pretending to be Davis cup captains on Twitter," Paul tweeted.

Here is the one that was deleted immediately.

"You obviously didn't have tennis tv in your parents basement during glasgow.... Doubles number 1 or 100 he struggles against singles players ranked 1-8,000, singles or doubles," Paul wrote.

It's impossible for anyone to tell how much of a difference Rajeev Ram would have made to Team USA's campaign, but one thing is for sure — things have gone awry between the players and it is difficult to imagine them playing alongside each other in the future.