Last year, the 18-year-old from Sheffield was recruited to the Monte Carlo Tennis Academy - the world's first touring tennis academy where only players with top-100 potential are considered.

She has been nominated for the LTA's young female player of the year - an award decided by a public vote on the LTA's website.

Hey, this is Anna writing from Florida where I'm currently in the middle of a two-week training block to put on weight and build extra strength as I continue to try to make the step from the junior ranks to the senior ranks.

Anna is in Florida for a period of intensive training

The lifestyles of young British tennis players have been in the news a lot recently.

I can't really comment about the individual people mentioned because I'm not based at Roehampton and so I don't really know what goes on.

But I agree with what Andy Murray said - that everyone goes through stages where they do things they probably shouldn't, but that if you want to make it to the top, you've got to learn from mistakes and ultimately be professional.

I was talking to my coach at the Monte Carlo Tennis Academy (MCTA), David Sammel, about it a few weeks ago, and he was telling me that if you want to be a top tennis player, you have to make sacrifices.

The thing is, to me, it's not really a sacrifice to work hard at tennis and not go out every night with my friends. It's what I want to do.

It's not that I would never have an alcoholic drink or have a pizza because in the right circumstances there is nothing wrong with it, but I would never drink or stay out late during a tournament or while training.

Anna is concentrating on building up her power

Because the MCTA is a travelling academy, I'm hardly ever at home, but if I do have a week off and go home to Sheffield, I might go down the pub one night with my brothers to do the pub quiz.

At that time, yes, I might have one or two drinks, but never more than that. I'm never going to go out and get hammered.

I think it helped that I went to boarding school for my tennis, and we weren't allowed to go out at all before the sixth form.

Since I joined the MCTA last year we've been travelling all the time, so there was never the temptation that there might have been if I was at home where, to be honest, it might get a bit too comfortable.

I think you always have to look at yourself and work out ways to get better, and not just on the court.

A couple of months ago, I realised that I was setting my alarm clock in the mornings, but pressing 'snooze' so that I didn't get up straight away.

I would then keep the lights off, and just sort of drift around getting ready and not really talking to anyone.

It all meant that I was starting off the day sluggishly, and not arriving for my matches and training as alert as I should have been.

I talked to my coaches about it, and ever since then, I've made sure that as soon as the alarm goes, I get up, make sure I'm fresh, and always arrive at the tennis club ready to go.

I was here in Florida at the same time last year, but then it was all about building endurance - we would run loads of 400m sprints, one after another.

Anna and co hide the pizza boxes and get stuck into a healthy dinner

I can remember us lying on the track after about nine of them, just unable to do any more! But it was worth it, because it means you can keep going when it gets tight in matches.

This year I need to put on extra weight and strength to give me that greater weight of shot. I've got the game, but I need to be able to match the other players physically.

That was emphasised to me in the last match I played. I had done well to qualify for the event in Augusta, Georgia, but then came up against a Russian girl called Alisa Kleybanova who is ranked more than 200 places above me.

She was so big and strong that I was convinced during the match that she must be about 25.

Afterwards I found out that she was the same age as me (18). It made me realise that if she's ranked 150 in the world, and if I want to go higher than that, which I do, I need to get stronger.

I've been drinking two huge protein shakes each day (normally I would just drink one). They are so thick that I have to mix them with loads of milk or I can't get them down!

I'm also doing weights and sessions of 15 x 200m sprints with a minute of rest in-between.

I've been eating a lot, too - last night we made two huge bowls of rice and chicken for the players and coaches in our apartment. I thought I was going to burst!

I've got another week to go of this training block here in Florida, and then I'll be off to Poland, the Czech Republic and the United Arab Emirates to put my new, hopefully bigger muscles to the test!

Bye for now,
Anna