His first appearance in the main draw of one of these events was from a wild card in the Arpa Ceramic Cup in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where he lost to world #219 Salvador Navarro, but did manage to win a set.

[3] This performance earned him enough ranking points to qualify for a futures event in Helsingør, Denmark, where he had a strong run to the semifinals.

[8] The schedule of rankings changes meant that both these events were added to the points count on the week of June 6, 2005, lifting Golubev up into the top 500 for the first time in his career.

[9] In late July, Golubev earned his first direct acceptance into a challenger event, a clay court tournament in Valladolid, Spain.

In September, at a futures event in Porto Torres, Italy, he teamed with Adriano Biasella and won the tournament, losing only a single set.

He returned to the top 400 after making the finals in Vicenza, rising to a new career-high ranking, but in this tournament he benefited from drawing a wild card in his first match, and getting both a withdrawal and a retirement from other opponents.

[15][16] He returned to the challenger circuit for the start of June, qualifying for an event in Turin, where he lost in the first round, but his ranking suffered a major blow when his two wins from the previous season dropped off, sending him down to #448.

[16][17] Despite this setback, Golubev had a major breakthrough in Milan, where, as a wild card, he won back-to-back challenger matches for the first time, progressing to the quarterfinals before losing to Sydney Olympic bronze medalist Arnaud Di Pasquale.

[16] Golubev's first tournament of 2007 was a first for him, as he attempted to qualify for his first ATP International Series event, the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha.

[25] Through the early months of the year, Golubev continued to attempt to qualify for both ATP and challenger events, with no success.

[26] He was able to gain direct acceptance to a challenger event in Rome in May, his first appearance in a main draw since September 2006, making the quarterfinals.

In his first major event on grass, Golubev defeated #1 seed Olivier Patience, but fell short in the final round, losing his first five-set match to Wang Yeu-Tzuoo, and failing to qualify.

[30] In late October, Golubev again attempted to qualify for an ATP tour event, this time the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in Basel.

This time, he was successful, not dropping a set in qualifying, and so made his first career ATP International Series main draw.

[25] Golubev began the season by qualifying for his second ATP event, the Next Generation Adelaide International, but lost to a man he had beaten in Australia the year before, Ernests Gulbis, in the first round.

[33] In Australian Open qualifying, Golubev again fell short at the second round, but this time he quickly moved on to a challenger event in Heilbronn, Germany, where he reeled off eight straight wins, including beating #1 seed Florian Mayer and Philipp Petzschner in the final, winning his first career challenger event, and putting him to a new career-high ranking of 135.

[36] Golubev again attempted to qualify for the 2008 Open 13 in Marseille, but fell just one set short, losing to Ivan Dodig.

Golubev continued his attempts to qualify for ATP level events, succeeding at the 2008 Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles, but losing in the first round to Florent Serra.

However, when Juan Carlos Ferrero pulled out of the tournament, Golubev was chosen as the lucky loser to replace him, and made his Grand Slam debut against an American wildcard, Brendan Evans.

He then reached the second round of the 2010 Grand Prix Hassan II and as a qualifier in the 2010 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, falling to Richard Gasquet and David Ferrer, respectively.

Partnering with fellow Kazakh Alexander Bublik, Golubev reached the third round of the 2021 Australian Open his best showing in his career at this Major, after a five-year non-participation at a Grand Slam level in doubles, defeating top pair R. Farrah/J.S.

11 seeded Wesley Koolhof/Jean-Julien Rojer (third round) and Hugo Nys/Tim Pütz (quarterfinals) en route, Golubev's best showing at this Grand Slam since the doubles semifinal of the 2014 French Open partnering with Samuel Groth.

At the 2021 St. Petersburg Open he reached his second ATP doubles final of the season and third in his career partnering Hugo Nys.

He reached his fourth final in two years with Denys Molchanov at the 2023 Stockholm Open and won his first career title in doubles.

Golubev became the second Kazakhstani player to win an ATP Tour doubles title in the Open Era after Aleksandr Nedovyesov lifted the trophy in Bastad in the same season.

[51] However, before the 2008 Canada Masters, he changed his affiliation, appearing on the draw as an athlete from Kazakhstan, and his ATP profile now reflects this.