Hosts New Zealand and Fiji suffered surprise losses early on against Wales and USA, Samoa lost to Fiji in a crucial game at the end of the day, England lost out against Argentina and Series leaders South Africa were pegged back in the penultimate match and finally beaten by a rampant Kenya.
Entering the final match Australia were the only team capable of registering a 100% record but New Zealand rose to the challenge when they most needed to and beat their trans-Tasman rivals 26-19 without injured captain DJ Forbes.
The defending champion kiwis advance to the Cup quarter finals with Fiji, South Africa, Argentina, England, Wales, USA and Kenya.
2006 winners Samoa fail to make the last eight in the Cup after losing out to Fiji and USA on points difference, the same fate suffered by impressive Australia in their pool.
Cup quarter finals
Kenya - Wales
Fiji - England
Argentina - USA
New Zealand - South Africa
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Pool A - RSA, KEN, SCO, TON
South Africa followed up on their Cup victories in the first two events of the IRB Sevens World Series in Dubai and George with a near faultless display in Wellington, until Kenya proved them to be fallible late in the day.
Paul Treu's side hardly put a foot wrong in dispatching Scotland 24-0 and then a dangerous Tongan side 22-5 before building a lead against Kenya, only to be pipped at the death.
Kenya also opened with a victory, edging Tonga 21-14 in a fine match, but then lost to the Scots, who battled from behind to win only their second pool match of the season. Tonga beat Scotland, though, in their final pool match.
Pool B - NZL, AUS, WAL, NIU
Hosts New Zealand got their title defence off to a horrible start at the Westpac, losing to Wales 28-17 after playing much of the match with six men. Tomasi Cama was sent off for punching early on and the Welsh capitalised to secure a rare victory against the Kiwis.
New Zealand did recover to beat Niue in their second match and then held on in the face of a late Australian charge to beat their great rivals 26-19.
To underline the competitive nature of the rugby at the Westpac, Australia could have topped the pool but instead miss out on qualification for the Cup quarter finals on points difference, despite beating Wales.
Wales' 34-10 victory over Niue in their final pool match confirmed their place in the Cup quarter finals.
Pool C - ENG, ARG, FRA, CAN
England impresed in winning their two opening matches, first coming from behind twice to overpower France 26-10 and then seeing off Canada 34-7, captain Ollie Phillips and Ben Gollings impressing. However, they then came unstuck against the combattive Pumas of Argentina, who topped the group.
The Pumas were held to a 17-all draw by a battling Canada side making their Series debut this season, before beating France 33-21 and finished the day as the only side unbeaten.
Canada and France played out an absorbing match to finish their day one campaigns, ending dead-locked at 12-12 - a second draw for the Canadians.
Pool D - FIJ, SAM, USA, CKI
Al Caravelli's USA side booked its place in a second successive IRB Sevens World Series Cup quarter final with a treasured win over Fiji and further impressive displays against Samoa and finally the Cook Islands.
The Eagles shocked Fiji in the third match of the day, Justin Boyd scoring at the death to win 15-10, but they later went down to Samoa in a fine match. Captain Chris Wyles twice put the Eagles ahead before the islanders pulled clear to win 26-17. The Americans' comfortable victory against the Cook Islands ensured a strong enough points difference to see them through.
The Samoans earlier scraped past the Cook Islands 12-5 but, with Fiji having recovered in their second match to overwhelm the Cooks 55-0, the Samoans missed out on a Cup quarter final place on points difference after losing to Fiji in their final match.
Day one reaction
Gordon Tietjens, NZ coach
"Probably the worst start I've had in my Sevens career. You can't compete with six men and you really struggle with five. It was one of those games where we had to turn it around. We played OK against Niue and had a particularly good six and a half minutes against Australia, 21-0 up and then our smallest guy tries to take on their biggest guy, they turn it over and we give them a sniff.
"We put ourselves under so much pressure so I'm pretty dissatisfied with the way we let them back into the game."
Chris Wyles, USA captain,five tries on day one
On beating Fiji and reaching the Cup quarter finals
"We set goals that we wanted to make the Cup quarter finals at every tournament that we come to and every game we approach, it doesn't matter who we're up against, it's the same way - to be physical, to play our own pattern and we did that against the Fijians.
"Then we said to ourselves that that's not going to be the best thing that we do today and were a bit disappointed that we lost to Samoa because we thought we could have won that, but we finished very strongly against the Cook Islands.
"I always wanted to be part of the team that was growing, and that's exactly what's happening here. We're just pushing and pushing and hopefully we'll build on this and take it through to the World Cup."
Al Caravelli, USA coach
"I'm very proud of our players because they've worked so hard, they're truly starting to believe in themselves, they have confidence and I think it's a big success.
"Chris Wyles just brings that realm of professionalism that he brought in his very first event in Hong Kong 2007. That's one of the reasons why he's the captain, he leads on and off the field, he's the epitome of professionalism. He'll be tough to replace but he's a great mentor as well and he's mentoring a couple of guys already."
Humphrey Kayange, Kenya captain
"It's a very big day for us. Started well, went bad in the second game and the boys really raised it in the last game and look where it took us.
"It's a big victory for us, there were three teams that we hadn't beaten and South Africa was one of them so it's a milestone, something we've reached, achieved on this tour.
"At half time I told the players we've got to believe we can do this, just go out there and play rugby the way we know it, just play with your heart and in the end playing with spirit and heart got us the victory."
Ollie Phillips, England captain
"We're disappointed that we lost to Argentina, we set our standard to go out there and win every game. That's our ambition, that's where we want to go so a minor blip but we're through to the Quarters, which is the main thing. We're still in the knock-out competition where we want to be, we just made it a little bit harder for ourselves.
"We believe we've got the players and the talent to go and win against any team so, while that game was very disappointing, we'll learn from our mistakes. Argentina played very well, frustrated us and didn't let us play how we wanted to play so we'll come back tomorrow and regroup."
