Fading/chase opportunity at the Miami Open.
Monica Niculescu is a soft-hitting brickwalling POS. There are "good" pushers/brickwallers (Kerber the outstanding example; Radwanska a much lesser one but still notable even if it pains me to type it) & then there are horrible pushers/brickwallers (e.g. Errani, Flipkens, Wozniacki). Niculescu is in the latter category. Her plan A, B, C, D, E... for winning points is get her opponent to hit an UE; it's only come plan N that that changes to maybe she decides to actually try & construct/hit a winner herself. As I've observed many times before, power vs. pusher means the match is always & forever on the racquet of the power player. Here Niculescu faces Konta, then (should she beat the Brit) Muguruza/Azarenka. The latter 2 players each just murdered their respective pusher/brickwalling 3rd round opponents, and whoever comes out on top between them should repeat the process against the Romanian. Frankly I don't see that happening because I don't think Monica survives Konta. Why these odds are closer than I'd have expected I believe can be dated back their only previous/recent meeting, which Niculescu won 6-2 2-6 6-2 (in the middle of last year): what stands out for me there is that Konta's real breakthrough came a couple of weeks later (when she beat Makarova & Muguruza in consecutive matches @Eastbourne just prior to Wimbledon, which announced to the tour that she was a serious foe; and was rapidly followed by 50k & 100k tourney wins before her USO run to the semi-finals). Also specifically regarding that match (on grass), Konta only won 51% of her first service points (as well as serving 0 aces & 5 DF), always a danger sign for any player to put up such a poor serving numbers. Since then her whole game (not just her serve) has improved strongly as her good results have fed her confidence/mindset & work ethic (her ranking then was outside the top 100, now it's 23), whereas Niculescu is simply a journey woman who's been on tour for a decade (she's 29 this year) and never achieved anything of real note (highest ranking of 28 four years ago / 84% of her 32 Slam appearances have ended by the 2R). As to the surface - grass - which Niculescu beat Konta on: in HC Slams, Konta is 9-4 SU; in non-HC Slams, she's 0-4 SU. Johanna likes HC surfaces, and that's what's provided at Miami. By way of comparison, Niculescu is 13-17 SU in HC Slams.
Niculescu's record at Miami prior to this year was 3 x 1R exits & 3 x 2R exits (in other words, she's never won 3 straight matches here. While this may be a 4R match, the Romanian got a 1st round bye due to her seeding hence this in reality is only her 3rd match). She lucked out to face a clearly hobbled Shuai Peng in the 2R (yet who she still lost a set to: 6-1 3-6 6-0) & a Coco Vandeweghe in the mood to dish up just utter garbage (7 of 12 service games broken, yet Niculescu was totally at sea in the face of Coco's power when it was on).
Konta looked good in dismissing Kovinic in 2 sets, and bounced back after losing the 1st set to Elena Vesnina (the Russian being 9-2 her previous 11 entering their match, incl. wins over Halep, Venus W., Wozniacki & the in-form Caroline Garcia, so in no lack of form herself). If Niculescu manages to beat Konta SU then covers the spread vs. the Mugu/Aza winner, I'll abstain from betting the French Open: that isn't happening.
