NAGANO, Japan -- Russian Ilya Kulik overcame a shaky start to win the men's title on Sunday at the NHK Trophy figure skating championships.

Kulik, a former European champion, finished ahead of American Scott Davis who skated his best performance in two years to move up from fifth after the short program to second.

American Scott Davis' impressive long program earns him a second-place finish. (AP)

China's Guo Zhenzxin landed a quadruple and seven triples to take third place.

"I missed the first combination again," said Kulik who also singled out of a planned triple combination on his first jump during Friday's short program.

"SOMETHING IS WRONG. I'M GOING TO have to look at the tape with my coach and work on it," Kulik said.

But Kulik, 20, skated a flawless program after that to take first place which also put him through to next month's Champions' Series final in Munich.

The NHK Trophy was the last of six qualifying events for the final.

But Kulik and Davis, a former U.S. national champion, both face difficult roads back to Nagano's White Ring arena for the Winter Olympics in February.

Russia will have just two skaters in the men's Olympic event and Kulik still has to compete against world bronze champion Alexei Yagudin, 17, and 15-year-old junior world champion Evgeny Plushenko for one of those spots.

IN ADDITION, DEFENDING OLYMPIC champion Alexei Urmanov is struggling to come back from a serious groin injury in time to compete in the Russian nationals in early January.

"It'll be very tough," Kulik said. ``After the (Champions' Series) final in Munich and the Olympics, the Russian nationals will be the toughest competition."

Davis said he was very happy with his performance.

"The last couple of years have been struggle. This is probably the best I've skated in a couple of years," he said.

He said the performance gave him confidence going into the U.S. nationals during the first week of January.

Davis will be competing with U.S. national champion and world silver medalist Todd Eldredge and Michael Weiss, who has consistently outskated Davis recently, for one of two U.S. spots in the Olympics.

AMERICAN DAN HOLLANDER, WHO WAS second after the short program, got low technical marks on Sunday and finished fourth. Japanese national champion Takeshi Honda fell attempting a quadruple and faded from third to sixth.