Her parents were professional athletes. Now, Westtown’s Jada Lynch is charting her own path.

In the debate of nature vs. nurture, Jada Lynch is a prime example of both.

Growing up in Belgium as the daughter of former professional tennis player Kim Clijsters and former professional basketball player Brian Lynch, Jada wasn’t just a product of her parents, but also of her environment.

Jada and Brian followed Clijsters during her return to tennis after having Jada. That included the 2009 and 2010 U.S. Open and 2011 Australian Open titles, all before Jada turned 4.

Initially, Jada followed her mother onto the court, picking up a racket before she could remember.

It seemed to make the most sense to Brian, who said Jada was “going to win on the gene side of her mother [more] than her father.” Clijsters won four Grand Slams and was the world No. 1 in women’s singles and doubles simultaneously for a few weeks in 2003. Brian played basketball at Villanova for four seasons from 1996 to 2000. The Point Pleasant native then played nine seasons overseas in Europe during his professional career, retiring in 2009.

But unlike Clijsters, Jada never had the same passion for tennis, which was clear to her parents early on.

So instead, at about 7 years old, Jada decided to try a new court. Not one of clay or grass, but one of hardwood.

She had tried her mother’s sport, but now it was her father’s turn.

“When I told him, ‘I want to try [basketball] out,’ he wasn’t really a fan of it,” Jada said. “He said it was really physical, but now, that’s my favorite part of the sport.”

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For Brian, it felt like his daughter was “going from one end of the spectrum to the other” switching from an endurance-testing individual sport to a more physical team sport.

At almost 8 years old, Jada also was starting a few years later than most children. In Belgium, where the family lived at the time, most children began playing basketball at 5 or 6.

All of her father’s reservations were immediately forgotten after Jada’s first practice, when she returned jumping around and telling her parents how much she loved it.

“From that point on, it wasn’t a question for me,” Brian said. “It was not like, ‘Oh, you should be playing tennis.’ It was, ‘She seems to really love basketball. Let’s roll with this.’”

The other thing made clear from Jada’s first practice was that the many sets and matches of her early years weren’t in vain.

“The movement from tennis and the footwork, the split steps and things like that, were really advantageous to her, learning as a young kid, because that was really easy to pick up for her,” Brian said. “So some of the footwork and the movement became really easy for her, really the moment she stepped on the basketball court.”

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Brian began his coaching career in 2013, and it was clear that taking on Jada as a pupil wasn’t the best path for the pair, who often butted heads while running drills and working out.

The “toughness and stubbornness,” Brian said his daughter showed during some of those sessions is a big part of who she is as a player today.

But it wasn’t just Jada’s “great genes” that shaped her into a “high IQ” and “competitive” high school player at Westtown School, her coach, Fran Burbidge, said.

Jada’s first four years of playing basketball were when she lived overseas, and every summer, she goes back to play for Belgium’s national team. This summer will be her fourth year, after the team reached out to her parents, watched her in an AAU game, and invited her to play for them in the FIBA women’s EuroBasket. She’s played at the under-16 and U-18 levels. Additionally, she was selected to the World team for the Nike Hoop Summit on April 11 in Portland, Ore.

“It has done wonders for the player I am,” Jada said. “Every time I come back from there, I feel like I’ve always made steps as a player. … It grows my versatility. It gives me an advantage over some players.”

For Brian, the main advantage he sees his daughter gain from playing overseas is the ability to play a faster game.

A lot of this has to do with the 24-second shot clock in Europe which forces players to make decisions at a faster pace from a younger age.

“You cannot turn to your coach and ask, ‘What should I do now?’ Because I have all the time in the world to run my stuff,” Brian said. “You’re forced to make quick decisions, and if you can’t do that, you learn through trial and error.”

Brian added: “I’m a huge fan and advocate of the way they do things in Europe, so I’m really happy that she has that opportunity to do that.”

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Jada said there’s always shifts that comes with playing in America and overseas, especially with getting reacclimated to rules differences. She said it also can be difficult to transition from playing high-level team-oriented basketball overseas to playing a more selfish game, which she said is more common in the United States.

But after reclassifying to the class of 2027 and transferring to Westtown from St. Rose High School ahead of the 2025-26 school year, that’s been less of an issue for Jada.

“I think Westtown actually does a great job playing as a team. I think even though we have amazing players, we all have the same goals, and we work toward the same goals,” said Jada, who averaged 14 points, six rebounds, and five assists per game last season. “No one on Westtown is selfish.”

That includes Jada, whom Burbidge said “sacrificed some individual” accolades for the sake of the team’s performance. With hopes of winning a state championship next year and the desire to go into college as prepared as possible, Burbidge said learning how to sacrifice and be selfless now is a huge lesson for Jada’s future, which she welcomed openly.

“It’s going to be her journey the rest of her career, where she’s going to be surrounded with really good kids,” Burbidge said. “She’s making a sacrifice, as they all are, a little bit earlier, with the individual accolades to prepare herself for that.”

Jada is still uncommitted to college but feels ready for wherever she ends up because of where her career has taken her.

“Me going to play overseas, definitely, I feel like, is preparing me for when basketball is almost going to be like a job,” Jada said. “It’s great that I get to go overseas every summer and develop myself and work and see based off of film what I would have to work on and just get better at those things to be the best player I can be going into college.”