He began playing tennis at age five. As a junior player, he won the 1998 Junior US Open singles and the 1999 Junior Wimbledon doubles titles. Nalbandian turned professional in 2000.

In 2001, he finished in the ATP top 50 for the first time. He finished 2002 as no. 1 Argentine and South American for the first time in his career, winning 2 ATP titles and reaching the Wimbledon final, where he set a record and stunned the tennis world by becoming the first man to reach the final on his senior debut, in 2002. Since then he has continued to climb his way up the ranks of professional tennis and has finished each of the last two years ranked inside the year end top ten. In 2003 Nalbandian reached the semifinals of the US Open, where he lost to Andy Roddick though he held a match point in the third set. Nalbandian is also one of the few active male players to have reached the quarter-finals or better at each of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

Nalbandian won Madrid Masters having beaten, by then the world’s two strongest players on the way to the title. First, he knocked out Rafael Nadal from Spain in the quarter-finals and then beat the World Number One, Roger Federer, from Switzerland, in the final.

On September 29 a reception in honor of Nalbandian was organized in Buenos Ayres on the occasion of granting him a passport of the special status of residence in the Republic of Armenia.

The reception was attended by the Deputy Minister of Sport of Buenos Ayres Francisca Irarasaval, Chairman of the Economic Development Commission of the Parliament of Buenos Ayres Andrea Makhyan, member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the State of Buenos Ayres Sergio Nahapetyan, Former Minister of Security of the State of Buenos Ayres Leon Carlos Arslanyan, national benefactors Eduardo Seferyan and Armen Metsaturyan, famous doctor Daniel Stambulyan, known politician and economist Carlos Melkonyan, other celebrated figures of the Argentinean Armenian community.

Armenian Ambassador Vladimir Karmirshalyan came forth with a speech, congratulating David Nalbandian on behalf of the authorities and thousands of his fans in Armenia and handed him the passport of special residence status. The Armenian Ambassador wished success to the sportsman, who as for 2007 was ranked 7th in the world rating list.

Greatly inspired and excited, David Nalbandian expressed gratitude to the Armenian authorities and informed that during his visit to Armenia he would hold a special "master class" for Armenian tennis players.

The next day, on September 30, the event at the Armenian Embassy was largely covered by local media.

On October 1st, 2008 David Nalbandian arrived in Yerevan.

That was David Nalbandian's first visit to historic Motherland. He arrived in Armenia at the invitation of the President of the Tennis Federation of Armenia, MP Harutyun Pambukyan and famous Argentinean Armenian businessman Eduardo Eurnekian. Nalbandian spent three days in Armenia.