Cahill or Kyrgios?

Sport fans will be spoilt for choice or forced to choose on Tuesday night - or at least flick between the two on television.

Canberra's rising star Nick Kyrgios will battle Scottish star Andy Murray for a spot in the semi-finals at the Australian Open, screened live on Channel Seven.

At the same time, the ABC and Foxtel will be showing the Socceroos match against the United Arab Emirates, both vying for a place in the final of the Asian Cup.

It will be an opportunity to find out which game has best captured the attention of the Australian public in a summer packed with world-class sport.

Nick Kyrgios' last match against Andreas Seppi was watched by an average national television audience of 1,583,000 viewers and was the most watched show of the tournament.

The Socceroos' quarter-final match against China got national average audience of 873,000 on the ABC, plus an additional 291,000 viewers on Foxtel.

And if shares on social media are anything to go by, tennis may have the edge.

Over the last 36 hours, all three of the most shared sport stories on Australian social media were about Kyrgios, with a Fairfax Media match report about his epic fourth-round, five-set win against Italian Seppi taking the number one spot.

But the Socceroos' most recent match was five days ago, so that is hardly a fair comparision.

Over the past week, more than 23,000 people used Facebook and Twitter to share a story about the great sportsmanship of tennis unknown Tim Smyczek, who allowed champion Rafael Nadal to take his first serve again after a crowd interruption.

The second most shared tennis story was about a ball boy who was hit in the groin by Spaniard Feliciano's powerful serve.

Of the stories about soccer, more than 8000 Twitter and Facebook users have shared a story about Iranian fans using social media to get around their government's censorship of pictures of the Asian Cup.

Channel Seven will screen the Krygios, Murray match from 7pm.

The ABC will start its Socceroos coverage at 7.30pm.

Foxtel's Fox Sports will broadcast the soccer from 8pm.

When Fairfax Media asked Twitter users what they would be watching, it got some creative responses.

@LarissaNicholso @theagesport It's Timmy/Socceroos time.. — Plums (@CeeJudd) January 27, 2015

@LarissaNicholso @theage @theagesport head to a sports bar and watch both! — Dean Papas (@deanpapas) January 27, 2015

@LarissaNicholso @theagesport need the old picture in picture... #goaussies — willow (@willow2409) January 27, 2015

Pffffffffft Allan Border Medal for sure. RT @LarissaNicholso: So, soccer or tennis tonight? @theagesport #spoiledforchoice — Conor Ryan (@conorVryan) January 27, 2015

@LarissaNicholso @theagesport The only option is to watch tennis or football while recording the other. Then watch in succession. #solved — Conor Ryan (@conorVryan) January 27, 2015

@LarissaNicholso @theagesport Kyrigos all the way...he's in an actual world class tournament; not a pub team level soccer cup. #KIDWILLWIN — Andrew Ivezic (@Andrew_Ivezic) January 27, 2015