01

Stop one
Church of St Donatus and the Roman Forum
Diadem Nova FS 100 Lite Series Tennis Racquet: It's a round church. Fine, I guess. Look at the bottom of it though. No, actually look – those are Roman columns and inscribed slabs pulled straight off the forum and stacked into the foundations, because the ninth-century builders basically opened the fridge, found an empire in there and used it. They didn't quarry anything. They shopped at the ruin. Also the acoustics inside are insane, they hold concerts in there, it's a stone cylinder so the sound just goes round and round and comes back at you and – okay. Whatever. I read a thing about it once. Can we go.
02

Stop two
Sea Organ, Zadar Riva
Diadem Nova FS 100 Lite Series Tennis Racquet: Steps. Some steps. Cool. So the waterfront got flattened in the war and rebuilt in this really ugly concrete and literally nobody ever sat there, and then somebody cut steps into it with pipes underneath, so now the waves push air through and it plays actual chords. All day. Forever. For free. And nobody's playing it, the sea is playing it, and it never plays the same thing twice because the sea doesn't repeat. Sit down and put your hand flat on the marble, you feel the low notes before you hear them. That's – I mean, it's fine. It's a good thing. I'm not going to say it's the best thing here. It's the best thing here. Stop looking at me.
03

Stop three
Land Gate (Kopnena vrata)
Diadem Nova FS 100 Lite Series Tennis Racquet: A gate. Sixteenth-century Venetian gate with the lion on it, landward side, great, amazing. Except look at the actual shape of it, because that's a triumphal arch. It's a defensive gate dressed up as a triumphal arch, which is such a Venice move – fortify the place and then make the fortification look like a compliment you're paying it. And these walls genuinely held Zadar through sieges, they weren't decorative, so the arch bit was the flex and the wall bit was the job. I don't know why I know that. I don't care about gates. It's just a really good gate, okay, drop it.
Everyone tells you a light racquet is a beginner's racquet. Wrong shop, wrong street. The Nova FS 100 Lite is 285 grams unstrung — 10.0 ounces — balanced 6 points head-light at 325mm, and Diadem calls it the most manoeuvrable frame in the Nova series without pretending it is the most forgiving. Manoeuvrable and forgiving are not the same word, whatever your coach told you.
The numbers, since you will not get them anywhere else in one place. Head size 100 square inches, 645cm². Length 27 inches, 68.58cm. String pattern 16×19, mains skipping 7T, 9T, 7H and 9H. Beam 23.5mm, tapered. Stiffness 69 RA. Grips L0 through L4, 4⅛ to 4½.
The FS in the name is the Flex Stabilization System — a patented rib structure inside the frame combining high-density foam with HMT carbon, which is Diadem's answer to the old trade-off where a light frame either twists or goes dead.
What that adds up to on court is a fast frame that still holds its line when you get late on a return. Zadar will recognise the approach. The builders here took a Roman forum apart and stacked the columns and inscribed slabs into the foundations of a ninth-century church, because reusing something strong is not a compromise, it is the whole method.
You'll get use out of this everywhere from the courts behind the old town walls to whatever surface you find out past the Land Gate.
And by the way, it's also perfect for the thing Zadar genuinely loves — going down to the Riva at the end of the day to sit on the marble steps of the Sea Organ and let the Adriatic do the playing — because a 285-gram frame is one you can carry to the waterfront and back without thinking about it once.
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