The Springbok Sevens side will face France in the semifinals of the Singapore Sevens on Sunday as they lost in extra time 24-19 to South Sea magicians Fiji on Saturday.
The Blitzboks survived two yellow cards to send the game into extra time but were outfoxed by a late try by Nacani Boginisoko to end the contest.
This is the third time in three tournaments that the two sides have met in pool play, with the Blitzboks winning in Cape Town while Fiji took the Dubai and Singapore games.
The Blitzboks face France at 9:14am on Sunday while New Zealand face Fiji in the other semifinal.
The Blitzboks started off exceptionally well, dominating early play as they kept Fiji on the back foot.
Tristan Leyds crossed early after a beauty of a show and go, beating his Fijian counterpart on the outside for a perfect first try.
Leyds was part of the second try as well. From the scrum, the Blitzboks playmaker put a pinpoint kick pass cross field to beat the defence, with Donavan Don taking the ball in the air and running it in for the maximum points.
Fiji hit back on the stroke of halftime when Terio Veilawa took an exceptional offload to cruise through to score under the posts.
Veilawa scored again early in the second half after a turnover ball when it looked as if Don was taken out off the ball, but the referee allowed play to continue.
The see-saw nature of the game came more into focus as the Blitzboks turned a free kick into gold, with a skip pass finding Christie Grobbelaar to take the lead again.
But that was short-lived as Dawid Brits received his marching orders for coming off second best in the air and Fiji scored shortly afterwards, exploiting the numerical advantage when Jeremaia Matan scored to level scores again.
Things got worse when Donavan Don was sent off for playing a player in the air, leavin the Blitzboks with only five on the field. But a superb turnover by Sebastian Jobb saved them and kept them alive.
They were on course before Nacani Boginisoko found a way through two defenders to weave his magic and give Fiji the win.
Earlier the Blitzboks beat Spain 21-14 and Great Britain 33-12 in their pool games.