I think that's not a terrible draw for Konta. She's got a winning record against Garcia (3-2 including 3 of the last four) and they are in similar form - beating Azarenka, losing to Sabalenka. Stylistically it's a decent match up too. And if she wins it, she obviously doesn't have to meet a top seed until the quarter-finals.
I'd have preferred something nice like Harmony Tan first round with the winner of that due to play the Gavrilova/Sorribes-Tormo or CSN/Muhammed (given Jo's H2H record with Carla) or even potentially injured lower seeds like CoCo V as that would be a very fair route to the last 32, but this isn't as awful as it sounds. Garcia is seeded 6th but at this stage of the season, I prefer to look at the 'race' rankings as that gives more of an indicator of form and Garcia is currently 13th on 2195 points which is a long way off Stephens in 6th place on 3403 and she's not got that many more points than the likes of Barty, Sevastova and Kontaveit and those 3 wouldn't have looked as bad on paper for Jo.
Perhaps influenced by the British factor, but the bookies have this match 10/11 vs 10/11 and IF Jo wins, then she gets the winner of Puig (who may well pull out) and Vogele which you'd take and then CSN is actually the highest ranked possible opponent in the last 32, so Jo would probably be a strong favourite to reach the last 16 if (again big if) she can get past Garcia. Not being seeded, Konta could have had far worse ties - Halep, Stephens, Kerber, Kvitova etc. but from Garcia's perspective I don't think there's too many worse draws that she could have - I reckon she would have been a clear favourite against every other non seeded player in the draw.
Good to see Heather talk about being more relaxed, and doing other things off the court too. I think if she can maintain that attitude and stay less stressed it will help here climb back up the rankings again.
And glad to hear Jo saying she's feeling better, though to beat Garcia first up is going to take some doing - she will need to be near her best, and since she's still recovering from her viral infection/ cold that might be hard.
Simona Halep has played in 34 Grand Slam tournaments and lost in the first round in 12 of them, including this year's US Open to Kaia Kanepi. Can't remember any established No. 1 with that sort of rollercoaster record at the Slams
Well the score doesn't really reflect the play, as there were quite a few deuce games. But Hev doesn't win the important points (including two BP), and loses the set 1-6