Transition Ladder
Why this drill
The journey from baseline to net is four shots long and most club players have never hit them consecutively. The machine feeds the whole journey, rep after rep, until moving forward feels like the natural direction.
Setup
Machine feeding at a steady interval, medium pace, straight ahead. Start each rep at the baseline center. If your machine can't vary depth, your own forward movement creates the ladder.
The drill
Four balls per rep, each taken a big step further forward: baseline drive, mid-court ball on the rise, service-line first volley, close volley punched at a cone. Jog back; that's one rep. Eight reps. Count reps where all four balls land in — a "clean climb." Four clean climbs of eight is the benchmark.
One thought to take on court
Split-step before every ball on the way in — climbing without split steps is just running through shots.