Yonex Ezone 110 8th Gen Tennis Racquet

Ischia di Castro, Italy  ·  Racquets > Adult

Yonex Ezone 110 8th Gen Tennis Racquet

This one is tuff, and tuff rewards patience. The big unhurried one: 110 in², 255 g, half an inch of extra reach, a sweet spot you could quarry. Walk with it the way you walk over truffle ground. There is a whole Renaissance city lying in these woods and most people drive straight past.

↓   Tour Ischia di Castro, Italy

Four stops before the checkout

Ischia di Castro, Italy
01
cardio tennis clinics Las Olas — Rocca Farnese in Ischia di Castro, A stern medieval fortress-palace of grey tuff stone rising directly from the rock at the highest point of the village, its Renaissance windows cut into massive older walls
Stop one

Rocca Farnese

Yonex Ezone 110 8th Gen Tennis Racquet: Come closer. Lower your voice. This fortress was raised between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries directly onto the tuff rock that carries the village, so the stone beneath your feet and the stone above your head are the same stone, and it became one of the oldest residences of the Farnese, the dynasty that ruled this corner of northern Lazio. In the Renaissance they began turning the fortress into a palace, work attributed to Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. Began. It was never fully completed. Its mass still dominates the skyline. And the strangest part is not a ghost at all: the capital of the duchy they created in 1537 lies a few kilometres away, in the woods.

02
cardio tennis clinics Las Olas — Church of Sant'Ermete in Ischia di Castro, A stone church with a simple facade in the historic center of the village, dedicated to the martyr Sant'Ermete, whose feast fills the town each late August
Stop two

Church of Sant'Ermete

Yonex Ezone 110 8th Gen Tennis Racquet: A cathedral with no diocese. Say that softly. Sant'Ermete is recorded as a former cathedral, and the rank is a leftover, because the diocese it belonged to vanished in 1649 along with the city of Castro itself, and the title simply stayed behind. It is dedicated to the martyr Saint Hermes, whose feast on 28 August is the village's patronal festival, and it anchors the historic centre below the Rocca Farnese. Through the centuries this parish gathered the community while Ischia passed from the Farnese dukes to the Papal States and at last to the province of Viterbo, here in the volcanic tuff country of the Alta Tuscia. A rank outliving its realm.

03
cardio tennis clinics Las Olas — Ruins of the City of Castro in Ischia di Castro, Overgrown Renaissance ruins of walls, cellars, and paved streets hidden in dense woodland on a tuff spur a few kilometers from the village, with a memorial column marking the vanished city
Stop three

Ruins of the City of Castro

Yonex Ezone 110 8th Gen Tennis Racquet: A city that is not there. Whisper it. In 1537 Pope Paul III created the Duchy of Castro for his son Pier Luigi Farnese, and Castro was rebuilt as a model Renaissance city, with works by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. Then in 1649, during the second War of Castro, following the murder of the bishop appointed to it, the troops of Pope Innocent X destroyed the city completely and dispersed its inhabitants. A column was raised on the site, inscribed to record that here stood Castro. And here the truth outdoes any ghost I could offer you: the streets are still there beneath the forest, with cellars and fragments of wall, and you may walk them today.

04
cardio tennis clinics Las Olas — Hermitage of Poggio Conte (Eremo di Poggio Conte) in Ischia di Castro, A church facade with a carved rose window cut directly into a tuff cliff above the Fiora river valley, beside a waterfall, reached only by footpath
Stop four

Hermitage of Poggio Conte (Eremo di Poggio Conte)

Yonex Ezone 110 8th Gen Tennis Racquet: A church that was not built but excavated, entirely, out of the tuff cliff above the Fiora river valley. First documented in 1027, tied to the monastic settlement of a borderland endlessly contested between the Papal States and Tuscany. Its carved facade holds a rose window in the Gothic-Cistercian manner of the thirteenth century, and inside, the vaults are painted with geometric ornament. Now. The eerie part. A cycle of thirteenth-century frescoes of the apostles and the Redeemer decorated the entrance until 1964, when the panels were stolen. Six were later recovered and hang in the civic museum here in Ischia di Castro. Six. The others have never come back.

The Ischia di Castro, Italy track

Yonex Ezone 110 8th Gen Tennis Racquet

Written for this world alone.

You will not find anything by charging about. You go slowly, you let the ground come to you, and the reward is enormous. That is the Ezone 110 in a sentence.

It is the oversize of Yonex's 2025 Ezone line: a 110 in² / 709.68 cm² head, 255 g / 9.0 oz unstrung and 269 g strung, 27.5 in long — a half-inch of extra reach and leverage — with a 16×18 string pattern and a beam of 26 / 29 / 24 mm. Balance sits at 34.29 cm, around two points head-light, with a swingweight near 301 and a stiffness around 65, and it strings at 40 to 55 lbs.

The layup is Minolon, Nanocell NEO and HM Graphite. Enormous sweet spot, effortless depth, and a frame that flatters a shorter swing without punishing a good one.

Ischia di Castro sits in the woods of northern Lazio, which is where I actually live. The ruins of the City of Castro lie in the municipal territory — capital of the Duchy created in 1537 by Pope Paul III for his son Pier Luigi Farnese, rebuilt as a model Renaissance city with works by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, and razed to the ground in 1649. A whole city, in the trees.

In the village, the Rocca Farnese was built between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries directly on the tuff rock, and became one of the oldest Farnese residences. The Church of Sant'Ermete is the principal church, recorded as a former cathedral, a rank recalling the vanished diocese of Castro.

And above the Fiora valley is the Hermitage of Poggio Conte, a rock-cut complex first documented in 1027, its church excavated straight out of the cliff.

A frame of 255 g behaves everywhere from a slow doubles morning on the village court at Ischia di Castro to a fast indoor league down in Viterbo, and it never once asks you to hurry. It is also perfect for the walk down to Poggio Conte, where the path drops through the woods above the Fiora and you will want one hand free for the ground anyway — that is where the good things are, and I do not say more than that.

Buy on Amazon

Scroll to Top