Novak Djokovic beat Italy's Lorenzo Musetti 6-4, 6-2 to snap his Olympics semi-final jinx on Friday and set up a blockbuster battle against Spain's Carlos Alcaraz for the Paris Games men's singles tennis gold.
The 37-year-old Serb had lost his three previous Olympic singles semi-finals but was in no mood to suffer more heartache as he came through a high-quality contest at Roland Garros.
Earlier on Court Philippe Chatrier, the 21-year-old Alcaraz thrashed Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-1.
Djokovic, for whom the Olympic gold is the only accolade missing from a career that has brought him 24 Grand Slam titles, collapsed on his back after match point as the reality of reaching the final sank in.
"It was such a tense match, a lot of emotions and stress coming into this match," Djokovic said. "I'm thrilled, I want to win gold but already this is a huge result for me.
"I was very nervous before the match and really wanted to get through this one."
Djokovic's only Olympic medal is a bronze from Beijing 2008 after losing to Rafael Nadal in the semi-final. He lost to Andy Murray in the 2012 semi-finals in London and in Tokyo it was Alexander Zverev who blocked his path.
Musetti, bidding to follow the Italian pair of Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani who had earlier reached the women's doubles final, played superbly but Djokovic found another gear to break serve in the 10th game and take the first set.
Djokovic lost his cool in the second as he went 2-1 down, earning a code violation which left him seething.
But he responded by knocking off five straight games to became the oldest Olympics men's singles finalist.
Earlier, Alcaraz powered past Auger-Aliassime.
The 21-year-old second seed is bidding to add the Olympic gold to the French Open and Wimbledon titles he won recently and was in devastating form on Court Philippe Chatrier.
"I played at a very high level from the beginning to the end," Alcaraz, who was sharper than in his quarter-final win against Tommy Paul, told Eurosport's Alex Corretja on court.
"One of my objectives at the beginning of the year was to win a gold medal and now we have this one match to try to get it and I am going to have fun.
"It's a very important moment for my team, my family and the Spanish people and I want to do the business."
Auger-Aliassime was bidding to become the first Canadian to reach an Olympic singles final and threw everything in his arsenal at Alcaraz, only to have it returned with interest.
"Be it the forehand, the forehand inside out, the back inside, I mean, every aspect, the movement, the defence, I was dominated, there's not much more to say," the 23-year-old said.
From the moment Auger-Aliassime double-faulted to hand over an early service break it was one-way traffic and a ruthless Alcaraz wrapped up the victory in little more than an hour.
Auger-Aliassime still has the possibility of taking home two medals as he will contest the bronze medal match in the mixed doubles later alongside Gabriela Dabrowski and will face the loser of the other semi-final for singles bronze.
Italy are guaranteed their first Olympic tennis medal since 1924 after Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani eased past Czech duo Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova 6-3, 6-2 to reach the women's doubles final.
Unseeded Australian pair Matthew Ebden and John Peers booked their place in the men's doubles final with a 7-5, 6-2 victory against Americans Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul and will now face another US duo in Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek.
