Alcaraz will be guaranteed to end the year as the world number one men's player if he wins the Paris titleWorld number one Carlos Alcaraz reached the quarter-finals at the Paris Masters with a straight-set win over Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov.
US Open champion Alcaraz, 19, recorded a comfortable 6-1 6-3 victory over 28th ranked Dimitrov.
The Spaniard will face Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev or Denmark's Holger Rune next.
Later, Serbia's former world number one Novak Djokovic meets Russian Karen Khachanov in the third round.
Djokovic has won the title in his past two appearances, in 2019 and 2021, winning 15 of his past 16 matches in Paris - with his only loss coming against world number 19 Khachanov in the 2018 final.
Contesting his second event since winning the US Open title and becoming the top-ranked men's player in September, Alcaraz backed up his opening straight-set win over Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka with another clinical display.
The Spaniard won nine of the first 10 games as he wrapped up victory in one hour and 12 minutes.
Dimitrov was able to bring the second set back on serve at 3-3 but Alcaraz then escaped two break points in the seventh game before sealing victory.
The Paris Masters is the final regular ATP Tour event of the season, before the ATP Finals get under way in Turin on 13 November.
Aiming to win his third ATP Masters 1000 title of the year following successes in Miami and Madrid, Alcaraz is guaranteed to be the top seed in Turin after world number two Rafael Nadal suffered a second-round defeat by American Tommy Paul.
Should he triumph in Paris, the teenager would secure the year-end world number one ranking before his debut appearance at the Finals.
