France's Michael Llodra and Jo-Wilfired Tsonga have defeated David Ferrer and Feliciano Lopez 18-16 in the final set to reach the men's doubles gold-medal match.
The opening seven games of the contest went on serve before the Spanish serve was broken in the eighth, with Llodra and Tsonga serving out the first set in the next game.
The second set was even more nip-and-tuck, with neither pair presenting the other with a break point until the 10th game of the set when Ferrer and Lopez were offered one opportunity, which they duly took to level the match.
The Spaniards then made the perfect start in the third by holding serve to-love before breaking the French in the next game to take a two-game advantage.
Llodra and Tsonga responded by breaking back in the next before both duos held strong on serve as the match headed towards the three-hour mark with no tie-break in the final set.
The Spanish were the first to crack as Llodra and Tsonga moved 13-12 ahead but remarkably they lost their serve straight away to surrender the chance of taking the match.
After six more holds of serve it was again the French who broke and this time they didn't pass up the opportunity of serving for the match as they took the final set 18-16, with the total matchtime at three hours, 29 minutes.
The Frenchmen will battle for the gold medal with the top-seeded Bryan brothers of America.
Pascal Lemesre
