Delray Beach, FL, United States, 22 February 2019 | tennis.com.au

Nick Kyrgios on Thursday fell in the second round of the Delray Beach Open.

The Australian went down 6-2 3-6 6-3 to Moldova’s Radu Albot, who advances to a quarterfinal meeting with No.4 seed Steve Johnson.

Johnson earlier beat Paolo Lorenzi 7-5 7-5.

Kyrgios – who served 19 aces throughout the 84-minute match – was nonetheless broken three times as Albot eventually got on top.

Kyrgios struggled with a knee issue, calling the trainer early in the first set and playing with tape just below his kneecap.

Nick Kyrgios on knee injury "I don't know man, I can't really afford to take any weeks off…I can't really go home & rehab, you always have to travel. At this stage honestly I am probably going to have to rely on my serve and just try to scrape through" #ATP #DBOpen

— John Horn (@SportsHorn) February 21, 2019

It appeared to be a similar ailment to the one he dealt with during his first-round loss to Milos Raonic at the Australian Open last month.