It is a mark of Konta’s elevated status that she is one of eight women who could end the tournament as world number one.
That remains a highly unlikely scenario, for now, but Konta’s hard-court record suggests she has every chance of surpassing her previous best of the fourth round at Flushing Meadows.
“I do love the hard courts but I think with every surface there’s an adjustment period,” said the seventh seed.
“Just because your results indicate that you’ve done better on a surface recently, it doesn’t mean for me personally that I straight away click.
“I think physically and approach-wise there’s an adaptation process.”
The Briton, 26, has only won two of four matches since reaching the Wimbledon semi-finals but believes “the quality of matches has been good”.
Krunic, 24, enjoyed her best Grand Slam performance at the US Open when she beat Madison Keys and Petra Kvitova before losing narrowly to Victoria Azarenka, but that was three years ago.
She is now ranked 77th but there were warning signs for Konta in the Serb’s win over French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in Cincinnati earlier this month.
Konta will not make the mistake of looking past Krunic, and her coach Wim Fissette is charged with coming up with a gameplan to overcome the 5ft 4in Serb.
“I don’t look at the draw because I approach every tournament from the get-go that it’s going to be tough, and I accept that fact,” said Konta.
“All I need to be aware of is once I’ve talked to my coaches, what’s my gameplan for the opponent that I’m playing?”