diff --git a/dask/dataframe/partitionquantiles.py b/dask/dataframe/partitionquantiles.py
index 0318d3d7f7a..ee19226a1aa 100644
--- a/dask/dataframe/partitionquantiles.py
+++ b/dask/dataframe/partitionquantiles.py
@@ -263,7 +263,11 @@ def percentiles_to_weights(qs, vals, length):
         return ()
     diff = np.ediff1d(qs, 0.0, 0.0)
     weights = 0.5 * length * (diff[1:] + diff[:-1])
-    return tolist_dispatch(vals), weights.tolist()
+    try:
+        # Try using tolist_dispatch first
+        return tolist_dispatch(vals), weights.tolist()
+    except TypeError:
+        return vals.tolist(), weights.tolist()
 
 
 def merge_and_compress_summaries(vals_and_weights):
diff --git a/dask/dataframe/tests/test_shuffle.py b/dask/dataframe/tests/test_shuffle.py
index 9df246f73e6..590b250c2be 100644
--- a/dask/dataframe/tests/test_shuffle.py
+++ b/dask/dataframe/tests/test_shuffle.py
@@ -1488,6 +1488,8 @@ def test_sort_values(nelem, by, ascending):
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("by", ["x", "z", ["x", "z"], ["z", "x"]])
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("ascending", [True, False])
 def test_sort_values_tasks_backend(backend, by, ascending):
+    if backend == "cudf":
+        pytest.importorskip("dask_cudf")
     pdf = pd.DataFrame(
         {"x": range(10), "y": [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] * 2, "z": ["cat", "dog"] * 5}
     )