make ground
verb1
Idiomatic gain ground; make progress.
- Replacement Damien Traille burgled a high ball from Israel Dagg and made good ground, the All Blacks scrum coming under increasing pressure and the crowd falling silent as their World Cup dream threatened to become a nightmare.2011 October 23, Tom Fordyce, “2011 Rugby World Cup final: New Zealand 8-7 France”, in BBC Sport:
- Today the territory carved out for the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk "peoples' republics" is shrinking fast as the Ukrainian army makes ground.2014, The Telegraph, Ukraine's rebels prepare to defend Donetsk to the death: