A Wimbledon champion is among hundreds of passengers bound for Australia who were forced to turn around after their plane started losing fuel.

Women's world no.2 Garbine Muguruza was one of many people on-board a Qantas flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane that failed to arrive in the Queensland capital on Thursday morning.

A representative of the 24-year-old Spaniard told officials at the Brisbane International, where she was due to attend as the top seed, that her plane had returned to LAX with a fuel issue, the Courier Mail reported.

Qantas said that the issue was not fuel-related, but instead was a fault with the weather radar system.

Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza's flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane was forced to turn around

A representative of the 24-year-old Spaniard told officials at the Brisbane International, where she was due to attend as the top seed, that her plane had returned to LAX with a fuel issue

Qantas said that the issue was not fuel-related, but instead was a fault with the weather radar system

The Boeing A380 was worked on by engineers after it returned to Los Angeles International and eventually departed eight hours later.

'Qantas Flight 16 (QF16) travelling from Los Angeles to Brisbane, returned to Los Angeles shortly after take-off when the pilots became aware of the weather radar system working incorrectly,' a spokeswoman for Qantas said.

'Engineers have since worked on the A380, which is due to depart at 5pm local time.

'We apologise for the delay, however we always put safety before schedule.'

Muguruza stayed in the city overnight and will board another plane that is due to arrive in Brisbane on Friday morning

The Spaniard made it to the quarter-finals in the Australian Open last year and built on that result by taking home the Wimbledon crown (pictured with compatriot Rafael Nadal)

Muguruza stayed in the city overnight and will board another plane that is due to arrive in Brisbane on Friday morning.

She does not have a first round match at the hard court event as she is the tournament's top seed.

The Spaniard made it to the quarter-finals in the Australian Open last year and built on that result by taking home the Wimbledon crown. She will be looking to claim her third Grand Slam in Melbourne early next year to take over as world no.1.