South Africa and New Zealand survived shock defeats on the first day of the Cape Town Sevens on Saturday to make the quarter-finals while world champions Fiji eased into the last eight.
The hosts suffered a 14-12 loss to Kenya in Pool B but made the next round courtesy of a 10-0 win over England, who were runners-up in Dubai last week, while injury-hit New Zealand recovered from a 24-12 defeat to Canada to qualify from Group D
Juan de Jongh and Ryno Benjamin scored the tries in the win over England that allowed the Blitzboks to avoid missing out on the Cup competition part of a Sevens event for the first time since Hong Kong in 2013.
Neil Powell’s side will face Australia in Sunday’s quarter-finals.
“We are in the Cup quarters where we wanted to be, but things just did not happen for us today,” said Powell.
“We made many mistakes and very few of the things we tried, really worked. That said, we are still on track to defending our title. There are no injuries in the camp, so we will give it our best on Sunday.”
Fiji and Australia were the only sides to win all three of their matches at a sold-out Cape Town Stadium.
For Ben Ryan’s Fiji side, who scored 129 points and 21 tries, their three pool wins — 34-19 against Scotland, a 52-0 rout of Russia and a 43-0 mauling of Argentina — means they have won 33 of their last 33 pool matches with London 2014 the last time they suffered defeat.
The Dubai champions will next play France after Les Bleus qualified on points scored following a 26-26 draw with Canada in their final match.
Australia saw off Portugal 45-0, Wales by 21-14 and the United States, 26-21.
New Zealand suffered defeat to Canada for only the second time in history but Gordon Tietjens’s side bounced back to top Pool D with a 19-10 win over Samoa to set up a quarter-final with Argentina.
In the other quarter-final, Kenya will face the United States who kept up the impressive form which saw them beat New Zealand in pool play last week in Dubai.