Q&A with Floriane Picaut from Women’s Tennis, delivered by RoadRunnerApp.com

Louisiana Athletics has teamed up with RoadRunnerApp.com to offer a new series on RaginCajuns.com in which student-athletes share details on how they’ve adjusted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and offer insight into their personal lives.

In this Q&A feature article, you will "Get to Kneaux" tennis’ Floriane Picaut. The Verrieres le Buisson, France native played No. 1 singles for the majority of the season.  
 

1. What has become your daily routine during quarantine? 
FP: During quarantine I usually wake up around 9am. I have breakfast and then I try to get most of my homework done before lunch time. After lunch, I usually play ping pong with my dad for at least 1 hour. Then, I either go for a run or I do some cardio in my living room. After that, I take 15/20 minutes to do some relaxation in my room. I turn off my phone and I listen to some relaxation songs while focusing on my breathing. It helps me relax. At night, I usually watch Netflix with my parents and later in the night I do more studying if I need to. 

2. How have you and your teammates stuck together remotely during this challenging time period? 
FP: During this period, we texted almost every day each other to make sure everyone was doing well. We are from different countries so we had to consider the time difference, but we tried to facetime as much as we could. It helped us to stay positive. Overall, we maintained a pretty good contact as a team during this time.

3. An important question: what is your favorite food? 
FP: My favorite type of food is Italian. I particularly love pizza, lasagna and chicken alfredo pasta.

4. Take us back to when you decided to come to the University and become a Ragin’ Cajun. What about the school helped you make that decision? 
FP: I was very excited about the amazing facilities that they have. I also liked that Lafayette was a small town and the campus was not too big. You were able to walk from a building to another in less than 10 minutes without needing to have a bike. Because this campus is smaller compared to other campuses in other states, I feel it’s more convenient. You can easily meet new people and get to know them.

5. What is your earliest sports memory? 
FP: It Is when I first walked on a tennis court with my dad. When I was little, I always went to hit an extra hour on the weekends with him.  The funniest thing about this is that he never played tennis before. He knew the rules but was not able to hit. So, he was trying to coach me a little bit but without knowing how to play. He learned everything on the court with me and together we learned how to play. I started to love tennis and so did he. 

6. Growing up, your sports hero was who? And why? 
FP: My sport hero has always been Roger Federer. I’ve always admired him for his behavior on court, his mindset and particularly he is calm. He never shows any negative emotions on court and it inspired me to do the same thing. His technique for me is the most perfect one. In my opinion, he’s the best one in our sport and he had inspired many kids.

7. What is your major, and what about it do you like most? 
FP: I’m majoring in management and studying international business as a minor. I like how the human relationships are keys for a business to succeed. It’s interesting for me to learn how to get employees to be motivated and rewarded by their jobs in order to be very productive in what they are doing. I also like my minor because of the international perspective. By being an international student, I think it’s really important to be open minded to other cultures and ways of thinking. 

8. What are your plans after your academic and athletic career at Louisiana is done?
FP: I haven’t really decided yet. I’m thinking of doing a master either in US or in Europe.